Henk Badings / Dick Raaijmakers Evolutions, Contrasts & Electronic Music

One of the most prolific composers of contemporary music in The Netherlands, Henk Badings was born in Indonesia in 1907, the son of an East Indies Company army officer, and orphaned at an early age. Back in Holland, Badings worked as a mining engineer and paleontologist, but abandoned this career to devote his life to music, making an impact in 1930 with the performance of his first cello concerto. The composer of various symphonies that made use of unusual music scales and uncommon harmonic structures, Badings began experimenting with electronic music in the 1950s, composing the first side of the Electronic Music LP in 1952 for a performance at the Gravesano Music Festival, using 12 oscillators and a violin, the second side in 1958 for a ballet performed by the Hannover Opera Ballet; recorded at Philips’ studio in Eindhoven, it utilizes various sound generators, the final track featuring Dick Raaijmakers, a composer and electronic music specialist then employed by Philips in the field of electro-acoustics.