 Throughout his career , Stockhausen excited controversy . One reason for this is that his music displays high expectations about " shaping and transforming the world , about the truth of life and of reality , about the creative departure into a future determined by spirit , " so that Stockhausen 's work " like no other in the history of new music , has a polarizing effect , arouses passion , and provokes drastic opposition , even hatred " ( Ulrich 2001 , 25 ) . Another reason was acknowledged by Stockhausen himself in a reply to a question during an interview on the Bavarian Radio on 4 September 1960 , reprinted as a foreword to his first collection of writings : 
