Else Marie Pade, from Resistance to Recording: The Life and Work of an Electronic Music Pioneer
The first English-language and internationally available book-length study of the pioneering Danish composer Else Marie Pade, her major works and life story.

Credited as the first Danish composer to use electronics to make music, Else Marie Pade (1924-2016) is acknowledged as a pioneer in her field, one of the first generation of electronic music composers. However, her cutting-edge and influential work was under-recognized during her career. Pade is now considered one of the many "forgotten" 20th-century women artists who are in the 21st century finally receiving due recognition.

Starting at the beginning, this study covers the composer's childhood, which was sickly and often spent in convalescence. As a young woman, Pade joined the resistance during the Nazi occupation of Denmark. She was eventually arrested and imprisoned at Frøslevlejren. It was after the war that Pade trained as pianist before turning to composition.

Structured in the composer's preferred practice of dodecaphony (i.e. twelve-tone technique) and traditional tonal music (based on the melodic scales consisting of seven tones each), this work focuses on a number of central compositions, including Symphonie magnétophonique (1957-1958) which describes a day in the life of an ordinary Dane, as well as the predominantly instrumental electronic pieces Syv cirkler (1958), Et glasperlespil I-II (1960) and Faust (1962), interspersed by interludes and thematic readings of Pade's life and work.

1146965611
Else Marie Pade, from Resistance to Recording: The Life and Work of an Electronic Music Pioneer
The first English-language and internationally available book-length study of the pioneering Danish composer Else Marie Pade, her major works and life story.

Credited as the first Danish composer to use electronics to make music, Else Marie Pade (1924-2016) is acknowledged as a pioneer in her field, one of the first generation of electronic music composers. However, her cutting-edge and influential work was under-recognized during her career. Pade is now considered one of the many "forgotten" 20th-century women artists who are in the 21st century finally receiving due recognition.

Starting at the beginning, this study covers the composer's childhood, which was sickly and often spent in convalescence. As a young woman, Pade joined the resistance during the Nazi occupation of Denmark. She was eventually arrested and imprisoned at Frøslevlejren. It was after the war that Pade trained as pianist before turning to composition.

Structured in the composer's preferred practice of dodecaphony (i.e. twelve-tone technique) and traditional tonal music (based on the melodic scales consisting of seven tones each), this work focuses on a number of central compositions, including Symphonie magnétophonique (1957-1958) which describes a day in the life of an ordinary Dane, as well as the predominantly instrumental electronic pieces Syv cirkler (1958), Et glasperlespil I-II (1960) and Faust (1962), interspersed by interludes and thematic readings of Pade's life and work.

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Else Marie Pade, from Resistance to Recording: The Life and Work of an Electronic Music Pioneer

Else Marie Pade, from Resistance to Recording: The Life and Work of an Electronic Music Pioneer

by Henrik Marstal
Else Marie Pade, from Resistance to Recording: The Life and Work of an Electronic Music Pioneer

Else Marie Pade, from Resistance to Recording: The Life and Work of an Electronic Music Pioneer

by Henrik Marstal

Hardcover

$120.00 
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Overview

The first English-language and internationally available book-length study of the pioneering Danish composer Else Marie Pade, her major works and life story.

Credited as the first Danish composer to use electronics to make music, Else Marie Pade (1924-2016) is acknowledged as a pioneer in her field, one of the first generation of electronic music composers. However, her cutting-edge and influential work was under-recognized during her career. Pade is now considered one of the many "forgotten" 20th-century women artists who are in the 21st century finally receiving due recognition.

Starting at the beginning, this study covers the composer's childhood, which was sickly and often spent in convalescence. As a young woman, Pade joined the resistance during the Nazi occupation of Denmark. She was eventually arrested and imprisoned at Frøslevlejren. It was after the war that Pade trained as pianist before turning to composition.

Structured in the composer's preferred practice of dodecaphony (i.e. twelve-tone technique) and traditional tonal music (based on the melodic scales consisting of seven tones each), this work focuses on a number of central compositions, including Symphonie magnétophonique (1957-1958) which describes a day in the life of an ordinary Dane, as well as the predominantly instrumental electronic pieces Syv cirkler (1958), Et glasperlespil I-II (1960) and Faust (1962), interspersed by interludes and thematic readings of Pade's life and work.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9798765119914
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date: 05/14/2026
Pages: 256
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Henrik Marstal, PhD, is an Associate Professor at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen, Denmark, and a musician and producer of alternative rock and electronica. He has been a member of Danish Arts Foundation and is a well-known columnist.

Table of Contents

Countdown and lift-off: A spirit in a material world
1. Recollections and repercussions
2. The White Night: Starlight shining into a Gestapo prison cell
Interlude I: Du og jeg og stjernerne er venner [You and I and the Stars Are Friends]
(1944)
3. The world around a girl: The inter-war period and World War II
4. The 'matchless discovery' of musique concrète and electronic music
Interlude II: Symphonie magnétophonique (1957-58)
5. Glass bead games and fairy tales galore: The childhood mainstay
Interlude III: Syv cirkler [Seven circles] (1958)
6. Set the controls for the heart of the sound: Pioneering other-worldly sonorities
Interlude IV: Faust (1962)
7. Hot dogs with Stockhausen, or: Electronic realizations, female colleagues and acoustic sidekicks
Interlude V: Étude (1965)
8. Is Hitler dead? The ghost of a dictator haunts a composer
9. Being a Mystic: The Catholic dimension
Interlude VI: Maria (1969-70, rev. 1972-80)
10. Rejection and retirement
11. The tale of an unexpected rediscovery
12. Widening circles: People, archives, tapes
Interlude VII: Svævninger [Soarings] (2012/1960)
Epilogue: Still counting the stars
Else Marie Pade timeline
Acknowledgements
Sources
A remark concerning the use of own sources
Abbreviations
List of illustrations
List of selective works
About the author
Index

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