Harrison Birtwistle

I always write the pieces I want to write.

I didn't have a record player.

I don't think there is much American music.

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

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

I wrote music as soon as I knew notation.

I'm not an architectural composer.

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

Music is such a problem in the time it takes.

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.

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

My operas and my theatre works are very formal pieces.

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

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

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.

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

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

It's the irrational things that interest me.

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