1.
I think music has gone through a period of something very severe, rather radical, rather the way painting did with cubism.
Harrison Birtwistle
2.
I didn't have a record player.
Harrison Birtwistle
3.
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
4.
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
5.
The opera tells the story with all the built-in contradictions and from many different angles.
Harrison Birtwistle
6.
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
7.
Music is such a problem in the time it takes.
Harrison Birtwistle
8.
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
9.
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
10.
The thing about influence is that any composer worth anything will give you the same names.
Harrison Birtwistle
11.
My operas and my theatre works are very formal pieces.
Harrison Birtwistle
12.
I'm not an architectural composer.
Harrison Birtwistle
13.
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
14.
Composing's not voluntary, you know. There's no choice, you're not free. You're landed with an idea and you have responsibility to that idea.
Harrison Birtwistle
15.
In the end it doesn't matter what you do.
Harrison Birtwistle
16.
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
17.
It's the irrational things that interest me.
Harrison Birtwistle
18.
This sounds horribly pretentious, but I like to think that if music hadn't existed, I could have invented it.
Harrison Birtwistle
19.
When I was a kid, I wrote music - from the age of 11 until the age of 18.
Harrison Birtwistle
20.
You either are or you're not.
Harrison Birtwistle
21.
I don't think there is much American music.
Harrison Birtwistle
22.
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
23.
I always write the pieces I want to write.
Harrison Birtwistle
24.
I think there are influences that you open the door to, and influences that come under the door.
Harrison Birtwistle
25.
I wrote music as soon as I knew notation.
Harrison Birtwistle
26.
The piece that had a large influence on me was Turangalila.
Harrison Birtwistle
27.
One thing I've tried to do in writing music is take on very basic things, very archetypal things.
Harrison Birtwistle
28.
When I dealt with set theory, I could never make it be the music that I wanted.
Harrison Birtwistle
29.
My operas usually come from musical ideas rather than ideas about subject matter.
Harrison Birtwistle
