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

Harrison Birtwistle

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Harrison Birtwistle
Age: 90
Born: 1934
Born: June 15
Composer
Film Score Composer
Music Pedagogue
Sir Harrison Birtwistle
Wanted
Make
Never
Dealt
Theory
Music

More quotes by Harrison Birtwistle

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I didn't have a record player.
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You either are or you're not.
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In the end it doesn't matter what you do.
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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.
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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.
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I think music has gone through a period of something very severe, rather radical, rather the way painting did with cubism.
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My operas and my theatre works are very formal pieces.
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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.
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Music is such a problem in the time it takes.
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It's the irrational things that interest me.
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I wrote music as soon as I knew notation.
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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.
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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.
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The piece that had a large influence on me was Turangalila.
Harrison Birtwistle