I’ve heard though that there is a younger generation of tonal French composers who are reacting with vigour.

Music history has flowed under the bridges for many years.

As I had collaborated with visual artists before whether on installations, on performance pieces, in the context of theatre works and as I had taught for a time in art colleges the idea of writing music in response to painting was not alien.

Somehow in the 20th Century an idea has developed that music is an activity or skill which is not comprehensible to the man in the street. This is an arrogant assertion and not necessarily a true one.

Over the years I have tried to develop something which is technically assured.

It makes sense to invest in new work. It’s almost like having a research department in a scientific laboratory. You have to try things out. You’ll make some bad mistakes. Some things will fail but at least you’ll energise the organisation.

There’s another way of making music, by touching the lives and feelings of ordinary people.

I work very fast, keeping the ideas flowing but making sure they come out the way I intended.

People like Arvo Part would not have been taken seriously 20 years ago.

The project which we developed, however, was for a sound piece and I was initially curious that a sculptor should be interested in working with a musician, especially on a project for radio.

I’ve heard though that there is a younger generation of tonal French composers who are reacting with vigour.

I have friends who have a CD mastering plant in Hollywood and they are very sceptical about European record labels’ understanding of digital technology.

Like an apparently strict musical form it breaks the five minute whole into its structural parts – a descriptive preamble, the action of taking the cards, the development of the cards’ manipulation and the revelation of what has been achieved.

I know that John Adams has had a very hard time directing French ensembles.

Craft is part of the creative process.

Still, American composers working in France have had a pretty hard time.

Writing tonal music now, you are not writing into the 19th Century.

The academic area of new music or modern music festivals is not something which attracts me at all.

It’s rather like attending a university seminar where you are talking to a few gifted specialists who deliver a paper to an audience of their peers. That’s one way of making music.

I am writing something which I find satisfying and which I am prepared to put my name to as a composer.

Similarly you can make a transition from one set of instruments to another imperceptibly.

I currently spend a lot of time thinking about orchestration and every detail of a piece.

I remember once, when I started writing for the alto saxophone, a saxophonist told me to think of it as being like a cross between an oboe and a viola, but louder.

One thing I’m doing on the new Titanic recording is actually bringing in different acoustic spaces.

When Philip Glass asked me if I would be interested in doing a new recording of Jesus’ Blood he assumed that I would do something similar to the first version and wanted to know what other pieces would be on the same CD.

What was once underground is now coming to the surface.