Among orchestral musicians, the piano and organ are considered difficult instruments because their tones are so sinusoidal and defined. And what is it like when an organ and a Bechstein grand piano are the only instruments that are supposed to harmonize with each other? They harmonize, especially on Alles Licht, the latest album by Ulrike Haage.

Haage may still be familiar to some people from the time when she played the keys for Katharina Franck in the Rainbirds, as a pianist in the first German women's big band Reichlich Weiblich or as a composer, but perhaps also as the winner of the German Jazz Prize 2003 or the Günter Eich Prize for her life's work in radio drama 2022. And if not, this small excerpt already testifies to an extremely versatile and excellent artist. This is also reflected in her latest album.

Alles Licht is an integrative composition of eleven pieces that seem to be interwoven, even if each could stand on its own. Two of the titles can be found like parentheses in variations, on the one hand Alles Licht, which is heard once again as a reprise and once as a coda, and on the other Window of Enlightenment, which is also accompanied by a coda as a variation.

In her latest sound play, Haage very cleverly combines piano and organ. The tasks are clearly distributed: The piano provides the bulk of the melody and harmony, the organ the accompaniment, interplay, background, the mood, the bass foundation and the playful and physically airy atmosphere.

This combination makes Alles Licht a very delicate, sensitive album which, despite its clever complexity, exudes a surprising lightness and is unquestionably relaxing. The only acoustic break can be found in Kaddish (Ravel Reimagined), whereby neither the prayer aspect nor Maurice Ravel's aspect really reveal themselves to me. But no problem.

All in all, the music flows as magically as it does seriously into the final sounds of the final piece Alles Licht (Coda), after which it loses itself in a fine reverberation in the listener that, after an hour and almost 15 minutes, echoes above all with a sense of well-being.

Is that spun?

Listen for yourself. And don't let the space, energy and sonority blow you out of your chair if you turn up the volume in concert. Because Alles Licht is a powerful album in every respect. (Thomas Semmler, HighResMac)

Ulrike Haage, piano & organ
Daniel Stickan, organ