Harrison Birtwistle Quotes

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

Harrison Birtwistle

Thinking, Gone, Way

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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

Responsibility, Ideas, Choices

The Observer, April 14, 1996.

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Music is such a problem in the time it takes.

Harrison Birtwistle

Problem, Music Is

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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

Writing, Ideas, Pages

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

Harrison Birtwistle

Matter, Ends

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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

Writing, People, Becoming

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

Harrison Birtwistle

Writing, Music Is, Basic Things

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It's the irrational things that interest me.

Harrison Birtwistle

Irrational, Interest

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My operas and my theatre works are very formal pieces.

Harrison Birtwistle

Theatre, Pieces, Opera

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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

Ideas, Layers, Things Change

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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

Attitude, Alaska, Looks

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I'm not an architectural composer.

Harrison Birtwistle

Composer

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I wrote music as soon as I knew notation.

Harrison Birtwistle

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

Harrison Birtwistle

Pieces, Influence

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

Harrison Birtwistle

Names, Giving, Influence

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

Harrison Birtwistle

Thinking, Sound, Pretentious

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When I was a kid, I wrote music - from the age of 11 until the age of 18.

Harrison Birtwistle

Kids, Age

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

Harrison Birtwistle

Different, Stories, Opera

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You either are or you're not.

Harrison Birtwistle

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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

Writing, Sea, Tuition

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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

Reactions, Theory, Minimalism

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

Harrison Birtwistle

Thinking, Doors, Influence

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I didn't have a record player.

Harrison Birtwistle

Player, Records, Record Players

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I always write the pieces I want to write.

Harrison Birtwistle

Writing, Pieces, Want

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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

Attitude, Writing, Littles

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Harrison Birtwistle

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Born: July 15, 1934
Occupation: Composer
Cite this Page: Citation

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