EMP 8

‘There is no devil. There is no god. There is nothing. There is only love’

By Jonas Olesen

Faust – Electronic suite in six parts (1961-62) was created by Else Marie Pade for a radio play by Ove Abildgaard broadcast on DR’s so-called ‘school radio’ in 1962.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s Faust, the first part of which was published in 1808, is one of the absolute masterpieces of European literature and is based on an old German folk myth. It tells the story of the young scientist Faust who, in his unbridled quest for unlimited knowledge, power and life’s pleasures, enters into a pact with the devil, Mephistopheles: All the world’s truths and glories shall be revealed to Faust – on one condition: His soul shall belong to Mephistopheles, who will fetch him to hell upon his death.

Faust has been adapted into operas and set to music numerous times throughout history by composers including Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt. Pade’s version is presented here solely as a musical work, as the original radio broadcast with voices could not be traced. However, Pade considered her soundscape as a work that could easily stand alone and performed it in its instrumental form at several concerts.

In retrospect, Pade described that the tale of Faust held a very special personal significance for her after hearing the story as a child. She has said that she has always ‘... loved Goethe’s work Faust deeply and sincerely. Especially the dialogue between God and Mephistopheles fascinated me greatly as a child, and when I was about to begin, I thought a lot about how God and the devil should sound. God ended up becoming such a mighty sound, like a bell tone, but electronic. The devil became a hissing that seemed to spiral, like a snake coiling.’ (Bak, Andrea: Else Marie Pade – A Biography. Gyldendal 2009.)

Pade’s sound design fulfils the dual function of being both music in itself and a sonic illustration of the plot. These two functions are completely intertwined sonically and structurally, so one does not experience sound effects or music as separate elements. Pade used a similar approach for her film music Vikings (1961), where illustrative and musical sounds are similarly interwoven.

Faust contains six movements, of which the first, ‘Prologue in Heaven’, sets the sonic scene for the rest. Here, one hears recurring chords of composite sine waves with short durations and abrupt attacks and decays. Already in the first movement, and throughout the entire work, Pade works with so-called beat tones, which occur when two tones of almost identical frequency create rhythmic variations, which Pade herself referred to as ‘fluctuations’.

In the second movement, ‘Faust and Mephistopheles’, one first hears the sound of a pen scratching against paper, and later the hissing that Pade used as a signature sound for the devil. The sound gradually changes into a prolonged howl, illustrating that Mephistopheles has transformed into a poodle.

Pade described the third movement, ‘Faust and Margaret’s Love’, as a scene where there are only ‘gentle currents. There is no devil. There is no god. There is nothing. There is only love. It is layer upon layer upon layer of undulating, gentle currents of sine waves that lie at very short intervals, which causes them to vibrate very slightly, creating a form of echo. The whole thing is almost laid down in layers like a huge blanket. It’s meant to illustrate love, and I think it does.’

In the work as a whole, only a few concrete sounds are used, all of which are so adequately manipulated and interwoven with the overall soundscape that they never stand out as banal sound effects. The overall soundscape is very homogeneous, with sine waves and white noise as the dominant elements. The atmosphere can be described as ‘heavy’ and serious, which fits well with the content of the story.

Pade created an exceptionally detailed score for Faust, drawn on graph paper, where the individual elements are plotted with precise time indications as in a coordinate system. For example, curves for the volume of individual sounds and the addition of echo effects are drawn in different colours. The score has almost visual art qualities and was later published in an exclusive print by the Danish Etching Society in 2012.

Pade herself performed the instrumental version of Faust in a concert version at the Fiolteatret in Copenhagen in 1962 as part of a programme of electronic music, which, in addition to Pade’s work, consisted of pieces by composers Bengt Hambraeus and Henri Pousseur. Pade had arranged this evening herself and was also responsible for performing the foreign works, which were played over four speakers. A contemporary review of the concert patronisingly refers to Pade as ‘the electronics girl Else Marie Pade’ who ‘lured us to the Fiolteatret at the weekend’. The evening as a whole is described as ‘a strange and exciting undertaking (...) and enough to give one neurosis.’

The exciting part was apparently the foreign works for the reviewer, as Faust is described as ‘35 minutes of wandering through a desert of monotony and boredom’. A later performance of the work took place at the Radio House in Copenhagen in 1969, where electronic works by Jørgen Plaetner, Bent Lorentzen and Per Nørgård were also performed. This was also reviewed, and here Faust is described as ‘static and monotonous ... but it was pretty’. (Dirckinck-Holmfeld, Gregers: Electric Music, Ekstra Bladet 17 April 1969.)

Notes

Previously released on Else Marie Pade: A Glass Bead Game, Dacapo CD, 8.224209 2001 (This release does not include the 6th movement). On this release, Faust is heavily digitally noise-reduced. In the present version, a direct transfer from the original tape has been used. A later version is Else Marie Pade: Electronic Works 1958-1995 Important Records IMPREC406 2014.

Else Marie Pade has indicated in a work note that Faust exists in three different abbreviated versions. These have not been traceable. The original radio adaptation of Faust broadcast on Danish Radio on 26 February 1962 had a newly translated text by Ove Abildgaard and was directed by Preben Ramløv. The various characters were played by:

Faust: Pouel Kern, Margaret: Anne Marie Juhl, Mephistopheles: Søren Elung Jensen, Valentine: Hans Rostrup, The Lord: Ejnar Federspiel, Wagner: Jørn Rose, Spirit: Ingolf David, Angel: Hannah Rahlff, Woman: Tove Maës, The Witch: Ebba Nørager, Martha: Tove Bang. In DR’s programme schedule for the day (A-1962-02-26-P-0582), the broadcast is shown to have lasted three quarters of an hour, which suggests that there must have been pauses with pure drama between the individual musical movements.