Else Marie Pade - EMP - Complete Electronic Works 1955–2012 (2025)

Complete Electronic Works 1955-2012 Dacapo Records (Book + CD + Complete Digital Discography). In a Gestapo prison cell in 1944, a young Danish resistance fighter saw a star flash through the window and heard music coming from inside herself. The next morning she scratched the melody into the wall with a buckle from her girdle. That woman was Else Marie Pade, and this moment marked the beginning of one of the most remarkable careers in 20th-century electronic music. This special edition book from Dacapo Records is the definitive document of this extraordinary composer - the FIRST Danish pioneer of musique concrète and electronic music, whose work stands alongside Schaeffer, Stockhausen, Berio, and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Yet for decades she remained virtually unknown outside Denmark, working in near-total isolation while creating some of the most inventive and poetic electronic music of her era. This special edition book with CD finally reveals the complete scope of her visionary achievement.

The story of Else Marie Pade (1924-2016) reads like something from a different century - or perhaps a novel yet to be written. As a child in Aarhus, frequently bedridden with kidney disease, she listened to the sounds of the world outside and created "aural pictures" in her imagination. She played piano and jazz in her teens, then joined an all-female demolition team in the Danish Resistance during World War II. She was captured by the Gestapo in 1944. In prison, through a window, she saw a star - and heard music from within. After the war, a 1952 radio broadcast on Pierre Schaeffer and musique concrète struck like lightning. Pade recognized in Schaeffer's work the sonic world she had always imagined. She traveled to Paris, became his student, and returned to Denmark to work in radical isolation - no colleagues were interested. If she was going to make this music, she would do it alone.

What followed was extraordinary: En dag på Dyrehavsbakken (1954-55), Denmark's first musique concrète work; Syv cirkler (1958), her electronic masterpiece inspired by artificial stars at the Brussels World's Fair; Glasperlespil I & II (1959), Morse-code-like minimalism based on Hermann Hesse and a childhood toy; the stunning Symphonie magnétophonique depicting 24 hours in Copenhagen; the deeply poetic Den lille Havfrue transforming Hans Christian Andersen's tale into pure electronic sound; Faust (1962), where God resonates as an electronic bell and the devil hisses like a snake. She worked with Karlheinz Stockhausen at Darmstadt, earned his collegial respect - he asked for a tape copy of Glasperlespil II to use in his teaching - and established a sound studio at Radio Denmark with engineer Holger Lauridsen.

This special edition book presents Dacapo Records' complete EMP Series - ALL of Pade's electronic works in newly digitized and previously unreleased versions. The collection is the result of an extraordinary editorial effort: in 2017, Pade's son Morten Pade handed over his mother's private archive to Edition·S - cardboard boxes containing reel-to-reel tapes, musical scores, lecture notes, sketch manuscripts, letters, written narratives, and newspaper clippings. From 2017 to 2019, composer Hans Peter Stubbe Teglbjærg digitized approximately 80 reel-to-reel tapes while scanning sheet music and revising scores. What emerged was a revelation: Pade was not merely an electronic composer, but an extremely versatile artist whose output included instrumental, orchestral, religious works, radio plays, fairy tales, TV ballets, films, music for children, and even an opera for children.

The illuminating commentaries by Jonas Olesen guide listeners through this extraordinary body of work, providing historical context and analytical depth for each composition. QR codes at the beginning of each chapter link directly to the corresponding digital albums, allowing you to listen as you read - a truly immersive experience that brings Pade's sonic world to life. A CD with five selected works is included. All physical originals have been transferred to the Royal Danish Library, where they will be preserved for posterity. The book's design by Studio Tobias Røder reflects the careful attention to visual presentation that characterized Pade's own meticulously detailed graphic scores - works that were known to exist but whose consistent sophistication was not widely recognized until this editorial project.

From the early experiments of the 1950s through works for radio drama and fairy tales, from her deeply religious later pieces to her final collaboration with Jacob Kirkegaard in 2012 - her first live performance, at age 88! - this is the complete sonic journey of a true original. Resistance fighter, electronic pioneer, poet of the concrete and the synthesized. Her life became intertwined with her body of work in ways that make the usual distinctions between biography and oeuvre impossible to maintain. What emerges from these pages is not just a catalogue but a profound artistic legacy - entirely her own fairytale garden to explore.

Essential listening - essential holding in your hands.

Tracklist
1 Glasperspil 1 7:34
2 Svævninger (Long) 15:00
3 Vikingerne 14:32
4 Eha - Den Fortabte Søn 11:49
5 Klangfarver Fra EMS 17:22