Quotes from 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.

The piece that had a large influence on me was Turangalila.

I think music has gone through a period of something very severe, rather radical, rather the way painting did with cubism.

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.

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.

One thing I've tried to do in writing music is take on very basic things, very archetypal things.

I'm not an architectural composer.

The opera tells the story with all the built-in contradictions and from many different angles.

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!

My operas and my theatre works are very formal pieces.

When I dealt with set theory, I could never make it be the music that I wanted.

Music is such a problem in the time it takes.

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.

The thing about influence is that any composer worth anything will give you the same names.

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.

In the end it doesn't matter what you do.

I think there are influences that you open the door to, and influences that come under the door.

I wrote music as soon as I knew notation.

It's the irrational things that interest me.

I always write the pieces I want to write.

This sounds horribly pretentious, but I like to think that if music hadn't existed, I could have invented it.

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.

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.

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.