By Andrew Clark [Financial Times, 6 March 2009]

The act of creation is “pretty self-indulgent”, says Sir Harrison Birtwistle, citing Picasso and Damien Hirst. But the remark carries no air of censure, for the UK’s foremost living composer has a Picasso print propped up on his drawing room floor, an industrial brick posed decoratively on his windowsill, and several minimalist canvases adorning the walls.