You either are or you're not.

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

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

— 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…

— 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,…

— Harrison Birtwistle

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

— Harrison Birtwistle

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

— 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

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

— Harrison Birtwistle

I wrote music as soon as I knew notation.

— 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…

— Harrison Birtwistle

I always write the pieces I want to write.

— Harrison Birtwistle

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

— Harrison Birtwistle

I didn't have a record player.

— 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…

— Harrison Birtwistle