Harrison Birtwistle
Harrison Birtwistle
Sir Harrison Birtwistleis a British composer...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionComposer
Date of Birth15 July 1934
player records record-players
I didn't have a record player.
irrational interest
It's the irrational things that interest me.
responsibility ideas choices
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.
composer
I'm not an architectural composer.
ideas layers things-change
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.
attitude writing littles
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!
attitude alaska looks
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.
writing want pieces
I always write the pieces I want to write.
writing people becoming
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.
kids age
When I was a kid, I wrote music - from the age of 11 until the age of 18.
writing sea tuition
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.
problem music-is
Music is such a problem in the time it takes.
stories opera different
The opera tells the story with all the built-in contradictions and from many different angles.
attitude next-week years
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.