“Karel Goeyvaerts was born in Antwerp in 1923. After receiving a humanistic education in Antwerp, he took courses at the Lemmensinstituut in Mechelen, Belgium. From 1943 until 1947 he studied at the Royal Flemish Conservatoire of Antwerp. From 1947 until 1950 he studied composition with Darius Milhaud and music analysis with Olivier Messiaen and was a pupil ofMaurice Martenot at the Conservatoire de Paris. In 1949 he was awarded the 2nd Prize for Composition and the Lili Boulanger Prize at the same college. He won the Halphen Prize in 1950. During the winter of 1950-51, he wrote the "Sonata for two pianos." Because of its decisive and total stylistic novelty he designated this work "Opus 1," thus rejecting all of his former work. With this sonata he created a structural synthesis of the dodecaphonic system ofAnton Webern and the teachings of Messiaen and laid the foundations for generalized "punctual" serialism. He demonstrated the application of this technique on the electronic medium in his compositions Nos. 4, 5, and 7. During the period from 1951-1956, he influenced -- directly, through personal contact and intensive correspondence -- the musical creativity of Karlheinz Stockhausen, whom he met during the summer courses of 1951 in Darmstadt. In 1953, Goeyvaerts and Stockhausen produced the first electronic music in the studio of the NWDR (Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk) in Cologne. In 1970 the BRT (Belgian Radio and Television) appointed him as producer at the IPEM (Institute of Psychoacoustics and Electronic Music) in Ghent. In 1974 he took charge of the new music productions for BRT-3 in Brussels. Goeyvaerts received several awards, including the Koopal Prize in 1967 and the Visser-Neerlandia Prize in 1969. He also was given commissions by the BRT, the Festival of Flanders, and the NOS (Nederlandse Omroep Stichting). His works have been performed in several European countries, as well as Canada, the United States, and Japan, and at festivals of the ISCM (International Society for Contemporary Music), including Brussels 1950, Oslo 1953, Graz 1972, and Bonn 1977. This CD is the first collection of some of Goeyvaertss ultra-rare vinyl releases, available here for the first time outside of their original vinyl editions.” - Cacophonic.