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NOT A SEVENTH BUT A FIRST AT SPRING LAKE VILLAGE CONCERT
by Terry McNeill
Wednesday, March 20, 2024
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SHAW'S MICROFICTIONS HIGHLIGHTS MIRO QUARTET'S SEBASTOPOL CONCERT
by Peter Lert
Friday, March 1, 2024
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FRY ST. SQ PLAYS A DEMANDING 222 GALLERY CONCERT
by Terry McNeill
Friday, March 1, 2024
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SPIRITUAL CHAMBER MUSIC MARIN TRIO CONCERT
by Abby Wasserman
Sunday, February 25, 2024
Chamber
SPIRITUAL STRING MUSIC IN BLACK OAK ENSEMBLE'S MARIN CONCERT
by Abby Wasserman
Sunday, January 28, 2024
Chamber
VIRTUOSIC HARP RECITAL AT SPRING LAKE VILLAGE SERIES
by Terry McNeill
Wednesday, January 24, 2024
Chamber
EMOTIONAL BLOCH PIECE HIGHLIGHTS PELED'S RAC RECITAL
by Peter Lert
Sunday, January 21, 2024
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OYSTER TRIO AT THE ROSE SIGNATURE SERIES
by Terry McNeill
Sunday, January 14, 2024
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CANTABILE CHARMS IN MIXED 222 GALLERY CONCERT
by Terry McNeill
Saturday, January 13, 2024
Chamber
BACH'S SIX IN WEILL HALL LINCOLN CHAMBER CONCERT
by Dan Solter
Friday, December 8, 2023
CHAMBER REVIEW
Valley of the Moon Music Festival / Thursday, June 24, 2021
Nikki Enfeld, soprano; Emily Marsh, contralto; Kyle Stegall, tenor; Edward Nelson, baritone; Allegra Chapman and Eric Zivian, piano

Tenor Kyle Stegall

LONG DISTANCE LOVE BEGINS VOM SUMMER FESTIVAL

by Pamela Hicks Gailey
Thursday, June 24, 2021

The Valley of the Moon Music Festival offered a 7th season preview June 24 with a stunning online concert, aptly named Long Distance Love, featuring inspired performances of Beethoven's short song cycle An die ferne Geliebte,, and selections from Brahms’ beloved Liebeslieder Waltzes, Ops. 52 and 65, for vocal quartet and piano four-hands.

This delightful half-hour of pristine ensemble singing and playing was the perfect promotion for the upcoming Festival itself, which is entitled Love and Longing: Reaching Across the Distance. The Festival runs July 17 through August 1, and comprises both online zoom and in-person performances at Sonoma’s Hanna Boys Center. After 15 months of live performance deprivation, this marks a joyous return for Festival participants and patrons alike.

An die ferne Geliebte (To the distant beloved, 1816) has the distinction of being the first song cycle as we know it, serving as the model for all of the great cycles of Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and others that were to follow. For his text, Beethoven obtained a set of poems written by an acquaintance, a young Austrian doctor Alois Jeitteles. The poems describe the emotions and circumstances accompanying separation from one’s beloved, a theme presumably close to the composer's heart, and now even closer perhaps to this year's particular audience, for whom the last fifteen months of forced separation from loved ones has been a painfully odd and unfamiliar challenge. These six sparkling gems describing love's longing, joy and sadness in the context of being immersed in nature, and were brought to radiant life by the intensely romantic, thoughtful, masterful and sweet singing of tenor Kyle Stegall and the virtuosic playing of pianist (and Festival founder and director) Eric Zivian.

Although the Liebeslieder Waltzes (composed 1868- 1874) are now most familiar as literature standards for full chorus, the original intent was for them to be performed with four solo singers in quartet and four-hands piano, and they work gloriously this way. For his texts Brahms used folk songs and love poems from Georg Friedrich Daumer's collection entitled Polydora. These little songs also dwell on the difficulties of love, particularly when it is unrequited or frustrated by separation, a condition with which Brahms himself was well-acquainted.

Soprano Nikki Einfeld, contralto Emily Marvosh, tenor Kyle Stegall and bass Edward Nelson formed a robust, yet perfectly nuanced and balanced quartet, with beauty of voice and intonation, excellent German and strong intercommunication. Pianists Eric Zivian and Allegra Chapman provided a dazzling four-hand collaborative performance.
This abundance of gifts and skills made for an engrossing 30 minutes, and was the perfect teaser for the upcoming festival.

The proceedings were expertly recorded by Boby Borisov and filmed/edited by Mike Grittani, with satisfying acoustical tone and balance, lighting and atmosphere. And happily, all the festival recordings will be available to the audience for repeat listening until the end of 2021.