This album is nothing short of a sensation: it shows Else Marie Pade (1924–2016) in a hitherto unknown role as an orchestral composer. Although these are only a few works, their artistic weight and the quality and integrity she brings to her orchestral works, provide ample reason to challenge her established image. With this album, it will be equally legitimate to label her as an ‘acoustic’ composer as it has been to call her an ‘electronic’ composer in the past.

Else Marie Pade is primarily known as the Danish electronic pioneer, who was rediscovered in 2001 and became widely acknowledged in Denmark and abroad for her work.

What few people knew is that Pade also composed acoustic, orchestral works. She never talked about the works and until recently, they only existed in her original scripts and had hardly been heard by anyone.

With these first recordings of her orchestral works, Else Marie Pade surprises for the second time as an acoustic composer.

The works on this album are also a valuable contribution to the repertoire in the concert halls, presenting something as rare as works from the 1950s and 1960s written by a Danish woman.

There is a continuity rather than fracture between the the ‘acoustic’ and the ‘electronic’ Else Marie Pade . The orchestral works seem to be ‘informed‘ by her electronic works and vice versa – related but working through quite different means.

The violin concerto Étude recalls an almost Ligeti-like sound world. The score prescribes a spatial arrangement of the musicians: the orchestra is placed in a kind of circular sourround sound design with the soloist in the centre, resembling modern 3D recording techinques.

Pade’s works are characterised by an almost childlike urge to tell stories, a strong sense of humour and a playful tone.