Harrison Birtwistle Quotes

• 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.

  5 Copy quote

• 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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• 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

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Harrison Birtwistle

  Attitude, Next Week, Years

  Interview with Dan Warburton, www.paristransatlantic.com. July 08, 1995.

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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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• 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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• 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

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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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• You either are or you're not.

  Harrison Birtwistle

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

  Harrison Birtwistle

  Theory, Wanted

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

  Harrison Birtwistle

  Ideas, Musical, Opera

  4 Copy quote

• My operas and my theatre works are very formal pieces.

  Harrison Birtwistle

  Theatre, Pieces, Opera

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• I don't think there is much American music.

  Harrison Birtwistle

  Thinking, Usa, American Music

  4 Copy quote

• 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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• I always write the pieces I want to write.

  Harrison Birtwistle

  Writing, Pieces, Want

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• I didn't have a record player.

  Harrison Birtwistle

  Player, Records, Record Players

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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 wrote music as soon as I knew notation.

  Harrison Birtwistle

  4 Copy quote

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