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

About Harrison Birtwistle

Sir Harrison Birtwistle was an English composer of contemporary classical music best known for his operas, often based on mythological subjects. Among his many compositions, his better known works include The Triumph of Timeand the operas The Mask of Orpheus (1986), Gawain (1991), and The Minotaur (2008).

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More quotes from Harrison Birtwistle

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

Harrison Birtwistle

English composer (1934-2022)

I don’t think there is much American music.

Harrison Birtwistle

English composer (1934-2022)

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

Harrison Birtwistle

English composer (1934-2022)

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

Harrison Birtwistle

English composer (1934-2022)

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

Harrison Birtwistle

English composer (1934-2022)

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

Harrison Birtwistle

English composer (1934-2022)

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

English composer (1934-2022)

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

English composer (1934-2022)

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

English composer (1934-2022)

I didn’t have a record player.

Harrison Birtwistle

English composer (1934-2022)

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

English composer (1934-2022)

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

Harrison Birtwistle

English composer (1934-2022)

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

Harrison Birtwistle

English composer (1934-2022)

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

English composer (1934-2022)

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

Harrison Birtwistle

English composer (1934-2022)

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.

Harrison Birtwistle

English composer (1934-2022)

I’m not an architectural composer.

Harrison Birtwistle

English composer (1934-2022)

It’s the irrational things that interest me.

Harrison Birtwistle

English composer (1934-2022)

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

Harrison Birtwistle

English composer (1934-2022)

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

English composer (1934-2022)

You either are or you’re not.

Harrison Birtwistle

English composer (1934-2022)

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

Harrison Birtwistle

English composer (1934-2022)

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

Harrison Birtwistle

English composer (1934-2022)

I wrote music as soon as I knew notation.

Harrison Birtwistle

English composer (1934-2022)

I always write the pieces I want to write.

Harrison Birtwistle

English composer (1934-2022)

Music is such a problem in the time it takes.

Harrison Birtwistle

English composer (1934-2022)

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

English composer (1934-2022)

My operas and my theatre works are very formal pieces.

Harrison Birtwistle

English composer (1934-2022)