My operas usually come from musical ideas rather than ideas about subject matter. — Harrison Birtwistle Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
The thing about influence is that any composer worth anything will give you the same names. — Harrison Birtwistle Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
I think there are influences that you open the door to, and influences that come under the door. — Harrison Birtwistle Copy Share Image
The opera tells the story with all the built-in contradictions and from many different angles. — Harrison Birtwistle Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
I think music has gone through a period of something very severe, rather radical, rather the way painting did with cubism. — Harrison Birtwistle Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
This sounds horribly pretentious, but I like to think that if music hadn't existed, I could have invented it. — Harrison Birtwistle Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
