Roll over Beethoven, it's Vorsprung Durch Technik time! The most visionary – and least understood – of modern European composers, Karlheinz Stockhausen talks to Brian Morton about the 'time bombs' he has created to escape from the 'graveyard' of the Western classical tradition. This article originally appeared in The Wire 62 (April 1989).

Earlier this year, Radio 3 sent a package of tapes to Karlheinz Stockhausen. The tapes contained music by Aphex Twin, Plastikman, Scanner and Daniel Pemberton. Then in August, the station’s reporter Dick Witts travelled to Salzburg to meet Stockhausen and ask him for his opinion on the music of these four “Technocrats”. But first, they talked about the German composer’s own youthful experiments in electronic synthesis. This article originally appeared in The Wire 141 (November 1995).

Karlheinz Stockhausen in conversation with Ken Hollings, Kurten, Germany, 12 March 1999