Harrison Birtwistle

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“I wrote music as soon as I knew notation.”

“I didn't have a record player.”