Michael Tippett

Music is a performance and needs the audience.

Conductors don't suffer, they are part of the performance.

Public notice does not necessarily accord with internal fulfilment.

I'm outside the music I've made. I have no interest in it.

The Greek sculptor - I don't think he was very different from any of us.

This is something special. You can attempt to have a kind of non-living music.

Shiva danced the world into existence... that's a very nice thought.

Nature has different times.

The blues are like the fugue in 18th century. It's probably the music that belongs most to our time.

My true function within a society which embraces all of us is to continue an age-old tradition. This tradition is to create images from the depths of the imagination and to give them form, whether visual, intellectual or musical.

Shakespeare fascinated me. He hardly ever left the country. His imagination was worldwide though reading.

I am quite certain in my heart of hearts that modern music and modern art is not a conspiracy, but is a form of truth and integrity for those who practise it honestly, decently and with all their being.