Else Marie Pade ‎– Et Glasperlespil

Vey much of the music on this CD could be mistaken for fine work produced this year, it's sound is fresh and complex. Of course, since it was made between 1958 and 1964, there are some tell signs of its age. But moments of equipment limitation and funny mastering such as these only increase my wonder at the years in which it was made. The liner notes describe Pade as gathering artistic momentum in Copenhagen, Paris, and Cologne, but soon dismissed by music critics and academics in Denmark. Between her gender, the type of music, and her geographical position on the outside of electronic music circles, she really had the odds stacked against her. What a terrible shame, because this music showed an incredible balance between form and content rivaling the best of the electronic pioneers. Denmark should be ashamed of itself for not having supported her properly.

Her soundtrack to the radio play of Faust is striking in its formal play of sinewaves, and conceptually deft by its assignment of electronic sound forms with characters in a manner similar to Peter and the Wolf. (Oboe is wolf, flute is Peter...) Her play of sinewaves puts a 50 year jump on the work of the Japanese Onkyo musicians, and avoids the deathlock of formal drudgery. When faced with the task of scoring for fairy tales, she found the electronic tonal palette well suited for imagination: Lauridsen switched on a tone generator, turned a few knobs and the room was filled with the sound of mermaids just as enticing as they should be. Her Graesstraet or "Blade of Grass" composition describes a ridiculous yet romantic story of a blade of grass dancing in a wedding gown waiting for her groom the moon, while mosquitoes become drunk and butterflies play. This image is accompanied by the concret recording of instruments later enhanced by electronics to create a cartoon atmosphere well ahead of Bugs Bunny. Sure there are some early electronic music cliché moments of plunking and blooping, but give me one early OR late work of Stockhausen that does not contain huge chunks of stinky cheese movements and over serious lounging in sad comedy. Although her work was the first Danish electronic music broadcast in Denmark, the responsibility to nurture should not have ended there. This CD at least is an attempt to rectify this situation, but since she is alive and well today, perhaps someone in Denmark should buy her a G5 and a few programs?

This is a fu*k*** pretty pretty great CD