Romance in bloom at Valley of the Moon Music Festival

The musicians of the Valley of the Moon Music Festival, a new chamber music series that debuted last summer in Sonoma, will circle back around this winter with three concerts of Romantic chamber music, all played on period instruments, at the Green Music Center’s Schroeder Hall.

For its Winter Residency at the Green Music Center, the VMMF festival will incorporate a few works for singers in anticipation of this summer’s theme, “The Voice in Chamber Music,” during the festival running from July 16 to 31.

“This summer, we are going to make connections between the music, like the ‘Death and the Maiden’ Quartet and the ‘Death and the Maiden’ song, both by Schubert,” said pianist Eric Zivian, co-founder of the festival. “That quartet is an epic work based on this song that he wrote.”

At 3 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 30, Zivian and festival founder/cellist Tanya Tomkins will be joined by two violinists and a violist to perform a program titled “Schumann: the Intimate Conversationalist.”

Pieces include Schumann’s beloved solo piano pieces, “Kinderszenen” (Scenes from Childhood); his Piano Trio in G minor; and his fiery Piano Quintet in E flat major, Op. 44, all performed on Zivian’s 1841 Viennese fortepiano.

“It’s a colorful cast of characters with Monica (Huggett) on the violin and Jodi (Levitz) on the viola, who is very dramatic,” Tomkins said. “The Trio in G Minor is very stormy and extremely sophisticated. It’s about ideas and ... the conversation with the players about these ideas.”

Tomkins and Zivian have already recorded some Schumann chamber music with Huggett, a well-known, Baroque violinist based in Europe, and will be recording the Schumann Quintet with her this winter.

“It’s probably Schumann’s most famous piece for chamber music,” Zivian said of the quintet. “It has a really great fugue at the end, where he combines the themes from the beginning and the end, and it has a funeral homage in the slow movement.”

For another program of Romantic music on Feb. 13, Tomkins and Zivian will be joined by East Bay soprano Christine Brandes, violinists Elizabeth Blumenstock and Axel Strauss and double bass player Michel Taddei for a “Schubertiade” program.

Historically, a Schubertiade was a concert program held in a private home and dedicated to the music of Schubert.

“They would have these patrons, and invite their special friends and show the samples of the composers’ new works,” Tomkins said.

The program includes the composer’s famous “Trout” Quintet - written for an unusual instrumentation of bass, cello, viola, violin and piano - and a few of Schubert’s 600-some songs for voice and piano, including the famous “Die Forelle,” or “Trout” song, which inspired the quintet by the same name.

Violinist Strauss, who taught for many years at the San Francisco Conservatory, will put on his gut strings and join Zivian to perform Schubert’s well-known Sonatina for violin and piano in D major.

Finally, on March 5, Zivian and Tomkins will join together for a series of Beethoven Sonatas for cello and piano.

“We’ve played those pieces for many years, and we recorded them,” said Zivian, who will be playing a copy of a circa 1795 piano that he owns. “The small piano sounds great in that hall.”

The small Dulkin piano. which was made by Paul Poletti and Janine Johnson of Berkeley in 1985, is perfect for presenting early Beethoven.

“If you’ve never heard thesewith the original instrument, on that small piano, it’s totally different,” Tomkins said. “The cello doesn’t have to play so loudly all the time to be heard, so it changes the way you play and you can bring out the subtle details.”

The program begins with Beethoven’s Sonata in G minor, from his early period, and ends with his Sonata in A major, from his middle period.

“People just love the A major sonata, and the last movement is an incredible piece,” Zivian said. “It’s so warm and exciting and beautiful, so we just have to end with that.”

The Sonata in D major, which approaches Beethoven’s later period, will be presented in the middle of those two sonatas.

“It has an extended, sort of spiritual slow movement that sounds like a chorale,” Tomkins said. “And it ends with a crazy fugue where you can hear his ‘Grosse Fuge’ coming down the pike.”

The program also includes Beethoven’s Variations in E flat major on a theme from Mozart’s opera, “The Magic Flute.”

The the symbiosis between opera and instrumental music will also be explored during this summer’s Valley of the Moon Music Festival, held at the Hanna Boys Center in Sonoma.

“Composers were so influenced by opera and song,” Zivian said.

The period instruments - featuring quieter, gut strings on the violin. viola and cello, and a warmer sound on the small, wood-frame pianos - make it much easier to create a balanced sound that is nevertheless full of subtle colors and breathy timbres.

And in the warm acoustics of Schroeder Hall, with its rounded, wood walls that resemble the inside of a piano, that creates a whole new auditory experience for the audience.

“That hall is a jewel for chamber music, and for these original instruments that are so intimate and subtle.” Tomkins said. “You can just hear everything ... it makes it sound like it really is, only better.”

Staff Writer Diane Peterson can be reached at 521-5287 or diane.peterson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @dianepete56.