On the Threshold of Magnificence: Philips and the Origins of Digital Music within the Netherlands 1925-1965

On the Threshold of Magnificence is an thrilling and detailed reconstruction of the emergence of digital music within the Netherlands. Kees Tazelaar–composer and head of the Institute of Sonology on the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague–relates its turbulent historical past from the earliest beginnings within the mid-Twenties via to the postwar period and the emergence of musique concrète. This historical past begins round 1930 on the Philips Physics Laboratory and the creation of the now-legendary Philips Pavilion at Expo 58 in Brussels, for which Le Corbusier, Iannis Xenakis and Edgard Varèse collaborated on a rare son et lumièreextravanganza. In 1960 Philips divested itself of the laboratory, and it was absorbed into a brand new studio at Utrecht College, the place Gottfried Michael Koenig grew to become creative director in 1964. Tazelaar additionally seems intimately on the affect wielded by the Contact Group for Digital Music throughout this era, and on the work of Dutch digital pioneers Jan Boerman and Dick Raaijmakers.