He is commissioned by Groupe de Recherches Musicale (Paris) to write the electronic piece 'Clair Obscur' (1982), whose title refers to Rembrandt. The play of light and shadow relates to the masses of sound, which slowly transform themselves. For the choral piece 'Car nos vignes sont en fleur', Ton de Leeuw receives the Matthijs Vermeulen Prize. The text of this work comes from the 'Song of Songs', the music is characterized by “extended modality”: tone rows, rhythmic and melodic formulas, a strict, cyclical temporal structure that emphasizes the material and ideal unity of the whole from a strongly symbolical/ethical background.