In the Happy Garden – sound & song

At the concert In the Happy Garden – sound & song in Basel on February 10, exotic sound worlds, with gongs, cymbals, fujara, vichitra veena, and other instruments played by Ulrico, met the prolific poetic songwriting with classical guitar accompaniment by Marcel Haag. They both love and live for their music and harmony, although their approaches to music are quite different. Marcel revels in poetic song texts, melodies, and intricate combinations of diverse harmonies in exact successions. Ulrico, on the other hand, relishes the continual flow of harmony by deeply attuning to and exploring fundamental sounds and harmonics, akin to sound mantras and meditative music. (This context further appears in the blog post Imperfect perfection).

(Through February 13, 2022, the captured live stream video of this concert was very briefly made available for viewing online. That was on Marcel’s Facebook page Marcel Haag Music, though with limited sound and image quality.)

In the Happy Garden – sound & song — the program

The 75-minute concert program included the following fifteen mostly short pieces:

Brief intro: «Gong Medley» – gongs (Ulrico)

«I bin es Lied» – voice & classical guitar (Marcel) with singing saw (Ulrico)

«Öffne die Tür» – voice & classical guitar (Marcel)

«Courage it takes / Es braucht Mut / Le courage qu’il faut / Il coraggio che ci vuole» – voice & 8-string guitar (Ulrico)

«Fahne vom Thurgau» – voice & classical guitar (Marcel) with alto fujara (Ulrico)

«Wolfesfährten» – strings, voice & classical guitar (Marcel)

«無為 Wu wei – soundscape» – Nepali & Tibetan tingsha cymbals, crotales, sound bowls, gongs, bass fujara, singing saw (Ulrico)

«Im glücklichen Garten» – voice & classical guitar (Marcel) with bass (Ulrico)

«Gartentag» – voice & classical guitar (Marcel)

 «Blessings may be» – vichitra veena (Ulrico)

 «Es soll Blumen geben» – voice & classical guitar (Marcel)

 «Ein Liebeslied» – voice & classical guitar (Marcel) with selje flute (Ulrico)

 «Guggisbärg-Melodie» – 8-string guitar (Ulrico)

 «Du Baum» – voice & classical guitar (Marcel)

 Close: «Sound/rhythm scape» – gongs & crotales (Ulrico) & voice (Marcel)

The cooperation concert venue in action