Top 28 Quotes by 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.

My operas usually come from musical ideas rather than ideas about subject matter.

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.

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

I don't think there is much American music.

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

I wrote music as soon as I knew notation.

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.

You either are or you're not.

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.