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.

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

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 and my theatre works are very formal pieces.

I'm not an architectural composer.

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.

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