Opinions are strongly divided on the subject of Karlheinz Stockhausen, who died on 5 December, 2007. Some herald him as the greatest German composer of the 20th century, while others dismiss his music as conceptual nonsense.

The pieces he produced during his lifetime might, according to some critics, be more accurately described as "experiments" rather than compositions because they lack the usual facets of music, such as melody and rhythm, and were frequently guided by mathematical theories or abstract ideas.

Nevertheless, his output pioneered the combination of classical instruments with the new electronic and tape technology of the 1960s, influenced the likes of the Beatles and Pink Floyd, and brought him great esteem.

Karlheinz Stockhausen was born on 22 August, 1928, in the castle-cum-maternity ward of the village of Mödrath in Germany.

He grew up amid the throes of inter-war depression and by the time he reached his adolescence during the Second World War he had lost both his parents to the Nazis.

His mother, who came from a prosperous farming family, had a mental breakdown when Karlheinz was four and was committed to an asylum, while his father, a teacher, moved jobs frequently to support the family. His mother became a victim of the Nazi’s policy of slaughtering the mentally ill and his father was drafted never to be seen again.

Against this chaotic and tragic background, Herr Stockhausen’s musical career began. He learnt piano at the local cathedral and quickly demonstrated precocious talent, being able to pick up songs within one hearing.

But he himself was drafted towards the end of the war – coming into intimate contact with death as a stretcher-carrier further shaped his world view, while the marching of the army gave him a lifelong loathing for repetition.

Poverty in the post-war period forced him to work as a night watchman and car park attendant in Cologne. He first tried to pursue a literary career, penning poems and stories, but then returned to music for a living, playing as a restaurant pianist and accompanying a stage conjuror.

He began to formally study music at the University of Cologne in 1947 and then studied under established composers in Paris.

In 1955, he became assistant at the new Electronic Music Studio at German radio station NWDR, eventually inheriting the position of director.

Between 1950 and his death the composer produced more than 300 works, developing an oeuvre of the strange, idiosyncratic and obscure. He eschewed traditional techniques and musical form, baffling listeners and contemporary composers, but striking a chord in an era when music of every kind seemed to be going through sea changes on a monthly basis.

Indeed, he was one of the luminaries featured on the front of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) album cover and several of the group’s more experimental recordings echoed his work. In particular, the end of I Am the Walrus (1967) features a radio being tuned in and out as does Herr Stockhausen’s Hymnem (1966-67).

Radio static is also used at the beginning of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here (1975), and On The Run, an electronic instrumental from The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), is Stockhausen-esque in its droning ambience and undulating pulse.

It is not known if the German composer was a direct influence on Pink Floyd’s modern equivalent Radiohead, but live renditions of The National Anthem (2000) feature a radio being tuned through stations at random over an eerie wail akin to Hymnem (which itself features national anthems from various countries) and Treefingers (also from the group’s experimental album Kid A, 2000) consists of mournful, almost tuneless guitar sounds reminiscent of Herr Stockhausen’s ensemble string piece Set Sail for the Sun (1968).

His pieces defy conventional musical criticism – at the most basic level they can barely be described as pleasant to listen to. The challenge, and his admirers say, the beauty, of his work lies in the exploration of concepts, be it the series of seemingly random electronic sounds in Kontakte (1958-60) which aim to straddle the entire range of pitch, timbre and duration (total serialism), or the Helikopter-Streichquartett (1992-93), a piece that, as you might imagine, requires a string quartet and four helicopters.

But whatever the merit of his actual work, his influence remains in little doubt, nor does his pioneering of new musical techniques. He is often labelled Germany’s greatest composer since Wagner, a highly contentious claim. But in terms of changing and shaping the 20th century world’s musical landscape and bringing new technology to the fore, his importance cannot be dismissed.

The Stockhausen Foundation announced on 7 December that he had died two days earlier from a reported heart attack at the age of 79. His latest compositions were due to be performed at festivals the following year. He was married twice (and was reported to have had numerous affairs) and had six children.