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

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.

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.

Music is such a problem in the time it takes.

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

It's the irrational things that interest me.

I always write the pieces I want to write.