Harrison Birtwistle famous quotes

03-28-2025

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

#Theory #Reactions #Minimalism
Music is such a problem in the time it takes.
-- Harrison Birtwistle

#Problem #Music Is
My operas and my theatre works are very formal pieces.
-- Harrison Birtwistle

#Theatre #Pieces #Opera
My operas usually come from musical ideas rather than ideas about subject matter.
-- Harrison Birtwistle

#Ideas #Musical #Opera
One thing I've tried to do in writing music is take on very basic things, very archetypal things.
-- Harrison Birtwistle

#Writing #Writing Music #Music Is
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

#Writing #People #Becoming
The opera tells the story with all the built-in contradictions and from many different angles.
-- Harrison Birtwistle

#Different #Stories #Opera
The piece that had a large influence on me was Turangalila.
-- Harrison Birtwistle

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

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

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

#Kids #Age
You either are or you're not.
-- Harrison Birtwistle
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

#Attitude #Years #Theatre
In the end it doesn't matter what you do.
-- Harrison Birtwistle

#Matter #Ends
I'm not an architectural composer.
-- Harrison Birtwistle

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

#Theory #Wanted
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

#Ideas #Layers #Things Change
I think music has gone through a period of something very severe, rather radical, rather the way painting did with cubism.
-- Harrison Birtwistle

#Thinking #Gone #Way
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

#Attitude #Alaska #Looks
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

#Writing #Sea #Tuition
I don't think there is much American music.
-- Harrison Birtwistle

#Thinking #Usa
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

#Attitude #Writing #Littles
It's the irrational things that interest me.
-- Harrison Birtwistle

#Irrational #Interest
I always write the pieces I want to write.
-- Harrison Birtwistle

#Writing #Pieces #Want
I didn't have a record player.
-- Harrison Birtwistle

#Player #Records #Record Players
I think there are influences that you open the door to, and influences that come under the door.
-- Harrison Birtwistle

#Thinking #Doors #Influence
I wrote music as soon as I knew notation.
-- Harrison Birtwistle
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.
-- Harrison Birtwistle

#Responsibility #Ideas #Choices

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