This broad overview of Stockhausen's music, written by a former pupil, has been revised and expanded in a new edition to take account of contemporary works added to the composer's repertoire since the last edition was published in 1976.

Stockhausen is probably the most influential composer alive today. He has dominated new music for 35 years, pioneering advances in electronic music, multi-orchestra music, musical meditation and music theatre. Robin Maconie's book, first published in 1976, is a complete overview of Stockhausen's music. This new edition is enlarged and completely revised, taking account of the works composed in the intervening years, which include such major landmarks as "Sirius" and "Licht". The contents are now streamed into chapters treating groups of works which share a line of development, for example "The Path to Electronic Music" which deals with the evolution of Stockhausen's electronic music from 1952 to 1956, or "Metamusic", which follows the evolution of his process compositions from 1963 to 1970. The study remains broadly chronological, however, depicting the overall development of Stockhausen's musical thought with clarity and insight.