Harrison Birtwistle Famous Quotes & Sayings
Discover top inspirational quotes from Harrison Birtwistle on Wise Famous Quotes.

My operas and my theatre works are very formal pieces.

It's the irrational things that interest me.

You either are or you're not.

I didn't have a record player.

I always write the pieces I want to write.

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

I don't think there is much American music.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

I'm not an architectural composer.

I wrote music as soon as I knew notation.