作者為英國作麯傢和作傢，上麵簡介裏是他的一段書中前言，沒錄全，意思不完整，補充如下：

“本書寫法帶有高度選擇性，我隻強調那些標誌著先鋒派音樂發展道路的顯著特徵，這意味著我們要研究費爾德曼的《投影I》這樣相對來說無足輕重的作品，而像潘德列茨基的《路加受難麯》那樣重要的大型作品卻幾乎難以提到。再補充一點，本書是由個人的音樂體驗和音樂觀點構成的。”

這是一個作麯傢按照自己的眼光，偏技術類型的眼光，撰寫的一本以技術運用為綱的二十世紀下半葉“音樂發展綱要”。下為這位作麯傢和作傢的簡曆，來自“古典貓網”www.classiccat.net：

Reginald Smith Brindle (1917–2003) was a British composer and writer.

Although he wrote for many instruments, Smith Brindle was perhaps best known for his solo guitar music, especially El Polifemo de Oro (1956), written for Julian Bream, as well as five sonatas (1948, 1976, 1978, 1978, 1979), Variants on two themes of J. S. Bach (1970), Memento in two movements (1973), Do not go gentle... (1974), November Memories (1974), Four Poems of Garcia Lorca (1975), Preludes and Fantasies (1980) and The Prince of Venosa (1994).

Smith Brindle was an expert on the music of 20th-century Italian composers such as Luigi Dallapiccola, Ildebrando Pizzetti and Bruno Bartolozzi (he studied with all three). He played many instruments, but was particularly fond of the guitar, organ and saxophone.

For this second edition of his guide to the more adventurous evolutions of music since 1945, Reginald Smith Brindle has added a new chapter reviewing developments in the decade since the book first appeared. He discusses the decline of experimentalism and the reaction against increasing cerebralism and complexity as variously illustrated by the more recent works of Stockhausen, the 'minimalist' works of Reich and Glass, and the partial return to romanticism. He also reviews the technological revolution which has taken place in computer music, and concludes that the future of music will for the time being be most closely associated with technological change and development, rather than with radical change in compositional techniques.