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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You either are or you're not.
Harrison Birtwistle