The German composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann (1918-1970) was one of the few musicians to remain independent of various 20th-century musical doctrines and to establish an individual style of composition.

Bernd Alois Zimmermann was born in Bliesheim, near Cologne, just as World War I was ending in 1918. His Catholic, classical education was interrupted when he was conscripted into the German army during World War II. In a private, unpublished letter written during this period he stated that he had never actually discharged a weapon at another person all the time he was a soldier. Wounded early in the war, he was able to resume his education in 1942. While a student, Zimmermann supported himself by playing in dance bands. In Darmstadt in 1949-1950 he abandoned a musicological dissertation on the use of the fugue in modern music in order to pursue a career as a composer.

Throughout his adult career...