I think music has gone through a period of something very severe, rather radical, rather the way painting did with cubism. – Harrison Birtwistle
The thing about influence is that any composer worth anything will give you the same names. – Harrison Birtwistle
My operas usually come from musical ideas rather than ideas about subject matter. – Harrison Birtwistle
When I dealt with set theory, I could never make it be the music that I wanted. – Harrison Birtwistle
The opera tells the story with all the built-in contradictions and from many different angles. – Harrison Birtwistle
I’m not a music lover in the sense that I look for something to have on. I’ve never had that attitude to music. – Harrison Birtwistle
I don’t have ideas so much as there are things which constantly evolve… there are various threads or layers, if you like, which change. – Harrison Birtwistle
People say my music is English. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s not me writing English music, but that English music is becoming more like me. – Harrison Birtwistle
One thing I’ve tried to do in writing music is take on very basic things, very archetypal things. – Harrison Birtwistle
When I was confronted with official tuition, the academic thing, I could see no relationship whatever between that and the music I’d been writing since I was 11. – Harrison Birtwistle
This sounds horribly pretentious, but I like to think that if music hadn’t existed, I could have invented it. – Harrison Birtwistle
There are rhythmic ideas which sometimes only work up to a point. In writing there are moments when it just comes off the page, it’s not just a collection of notes. – Harrison Birtwistle
The theatre only knows what it’s doing next week, not like the opera, where they say: What are we going to do in five years’ time? A completely different attitude. – Harrison Birtwistle
My attitude to writing is like when you do wallpapering, you remember where all the little bits are that don’t meet. And then your friends say: It’s terrific! – Harrison Birtwistle
I think there are influences that you open the door to, and influences that come under the door. – Harrison Birtwistle
Minimalism now is a reaction to what came before. It’s absolutely of its time. Music moved into the set theory thing, and moved out of it. – Harrison Birtwistle
