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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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