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

  19 Copy quote

• 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.

  4 Copy quote

• Music is such a problem in the time it takes.

  Harrison Birtwistle

  Problem, Music Is

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  3 Copy quote

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

  Harrison Birtwistle

  Matter, Ends

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  3 Copy quote

• It's the irrational things that interest me.

  Harrison Birtwistle

  Irrational, Interest

  3 Copy quote

• 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

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  7 Copy quote

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

  Harrison Birtwistle

  Different, Stories, Opera

  7 Copy quote

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

  Harrison Birtwistle

  Pieces, Influence

  3 Copy quote

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

  Harrison Birtwistle

  Names, Giving, Influence

  6 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

  3 Copy quote

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

  Harrison Birtwistle

  Kids, Age

  3 Copy quote

• You either are or you're not.

  Harrison Birtwistle

  3 Copy quote

• 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

  6 Copy quote

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

  Harrison Birtwistle

  Theatre, Pieces, Opera

  6 Copy quote

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

  Harrison Birtwistle

  Thinking, Usa, American Music

  3 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

  3 Copy quote

• I always write the pieces I want to write.

  Harrison Birtwistle

  Writing, Pieces, Want

  3 Copy quote

• I didn't have a record player.

  Harrison Birtwistle

  Player, Records, Record Players

  17 Copy quote

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

  Harrison Birtwistle

  Thinking, Doors, Influence

  3 Copy quote

• I wrote music as soon as I knew notation.

  Harrison Birtwistle

  3 Copy quote

• I'm not an architectural composer.

  Harrison Birtwistle

  Composer

  6 Copy quote

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