My operas and my theatre works are very formal pieces.

The opera tells the story with all the built-in contradictions and from many different angles.

My operas usually come from musical ideas rather than ideas about subject matter.

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.

Music is such a problem in the time it takes.

I'm not an architectural composer.

It's the irrational things that interest me.