Forgotten electronic treasures by composer Ton de Leeuw rediscovered: first release in the Dutch Oscillation Series Dutch Oscillation Series (DOS) proudly announces the release of a box set featuring the complete electronic works of Ton de Leeuw (1926–1996).

This publication marks the first instalment in a new series that brings the history of Dutch electronic music to life for a broad audience. The official presentation will take place on Saturday, 12 September, during the Gaudeamus Festival for contemporary music in Utrecht. Unique discoveries from the archive. For far too long, twentieth-century Dutch electronic music has remained hidden away in dim archives, only occasionally accessible under optimal conditions.

Many compositions have not been heard for decades, perhaps after being presented to an audience only once. For this project, the original tapes were carefully traced in basements and archives, including the mysterious work Chronos, which was rediscovered in the collection of the Netherlands Music Institute (NMI). Even close collaborators of De Leeuw were unaware of the existence of Chronos. Another highlight of this release is the radiophonic oratorio Job (1956), which was awarded the Prix Italia radio prize by broadcaster Rai.

The recordings were digitised by experts at the Institute of Sonology and the Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid (Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision). The music was then meticulously restored and mastered in the studio of Jos Smolders (EARLabs), in accordance with modern standards, while strictly adhering to the composer’s original artistic intentions.

4x LP set with a 12-page booklet in a beautifully designed slipcase.

2x CD with 16-page booklet.

Several of the compositions in this collection were originally intended to be experienced in a live quadraphonic setup. For this release, we used the original tapes and created binaural mixes from the four-channel recordings in order to recreate the spatial listening experience of those performances. For listeners with Dolby Atmos playback systems, ADM mixes are also available, allowing the original quadraphonic listening experience to be reproduced more faithfully. Elektronische Studie and Antiphonie were preserved as four-channel tapes and have been newly mixed in Dolby Atmos (available as a download), as well as in binaural stereo for the vinyl and CD editions.