Jacob Gade

Jacob Gade was a high-profile composer, an innovator in film music and a popular Danish musician and personality who was able to put Danish film music on the world map. At the age of 16 Jacob Gade left his home town Vejle to seek his fortune in Copen­hagen. With experience as a local folk musician in his father’s band Jakob was able both to compose and to play the violin with great talent, and that was enough to get him the job as conductor at some of the biggest restaurants and theatres in Copenhagen. It was during his work as conductor at the Palads Cinema that Jacob Gade really made his name on the inter­national music scene, when he wrote the tango Jalousie. Tango Tzigane in 1925. The tango was played for the first time at the Copenhagen premiere of the film Don Q, Son of Zorro, and almost immediately aroused international attention after Arthur Fiedler’s recording of it with the famous Boston Pops Orchestra. Since then the tango has been con­si­dered one of the biggest ‘standards’ in musical history. It has been used in several Holly­wood productions, and has been recorded by among others Placido Domingo and Yehudi Menuhin.