Quiet Rhythms: an interview with composer and pianist William Susman
There’s music that creates outside stillness, and then there’s music that leads the listener to find quietness within. Quiet Rhythms is the latter. This beautiful collection of short piano pieces blends stillness and movement, simplicity and complexity, light and darkness—all offering musical pathways to our own inner voices. Composed 2010-2013, Quiet Rhythms has been recorded by many fine pianists, but this album, performed by the composer himself, offers a unique understanding of the music.
In addition to being an award-winning composer, William Susman is an expressive pianist. In his hands, the music finds Susman’s signature “groove”—one shaped by his career as both a classical and jazz performer and composer. This live performance, which Susman performed at Spectrum NYC in 2013, was never meant to be recorded and it was only during the COVID lockdown that he revisited the sound files and knew he wanted to release it. As a listener, I’m thrilled that he did. Susman’s performance offers a sense of connection to something larger than concrete reality. It reflects his deep, almost mystical connection to the venue, which was once a Jewish burial society. It encircles the listener, encouraging us to listen with an inner voice and to hear “those fragile, delicate moments where quiet prevails.”
I’m honored to feature William Susman on No Dead Guys. It’s a joy to share this beautiful music with my readers.
What first interested you in piano lessons, and when did you begin writing pieces of your own?
My mother encouraged my older sister, brother and myself to all take lessons starting at seven. My first memories of piano were lying under the piano as a toddler listening to her practice Chopin. I still have her Schirmer editions of the Waltzes, Nocturnes, Preludes and Mazurkas.
I first started writing my own pieces around 14. They were modal tunes in the style of McCoy Tyner.
As a pianist, you’re an accomplished classical and jazz player. What convinced you to choose to pursue writing classical music rather than focusing on jazz?
Throughout high school, I studied and performed jazz piano while continuing to study classical and music theory. I wrote a school musical, a combination of show tunes and modern dance music. For the senior recital, I composed and performed a solo piano piece, a set of variations based on a spiral-like twelve-tone row.
These experiences motivated me to further pursue music composition.
What composers have had the most influence on your music and why?
In my late teens, I had a piano teacher who introduced me to all the greats. But, the stunning symmetry of Webern’s Op. 27 and the colors of Messaien’s Quatre Études de Rythme - Île de Feu 1 are pieces that to this day linger in my consciousness. When I arrived at the University of Illinois as a sophomore, my focus was music composition. It was there that I first heard Xenakis’ string orchestra piece Pithoprakta. I never knew an orchestra could sound like that. Xenakis and Ligeti had a strong influence on me through my mid-twenties. When I was 21, Xenakis generously responded to a letter and score I sent him. Fittingly called Openings, it was an ensemble piece for ten musicians. His response could be summed up as Openings was a student piece yet I had potential if I continued to compose. His remarks stayed with me as a message to find my own voice. I was lucky to have received these constructive remarks. I needed to find my own path based on my life experience and not his. Searching for my voice, I moved away from the sound world of modernism in my late twenties, and more towards my roots in jazz with pieces such as Twisted Figures. In the early 90s, my sound became infused with various usages of Afro-Cuban rhythms such as montuño and clave with pieces like Moving In To An Empty Space and The Starry Dynamo. My voice finally emerged with a direct connection to my background in jazz.
You’re frequently categorized as a “post-minimalist” composer. How does post-minimalist differ from minimalist, and do you feel this is a fair assessment of your compositions?
Minimalism in music really lies in pieces like La Monte Young’s Composition 1960 #7 which specifies to play only a 5th from B - F# for as long as you like. These are pieces that also typically outline a gradual process. A work such as In C requires a certain amount of time to fully realize its shape. Post-minimalist pieces are typically shorter, incorporating other genres and are through-written. If you’re interested, I have summed up my thoughts in an essay on minimalism and post-minimalism. When I set out to write Quiet Rhythms, I did not attempt to write in a post-minimalist manner. These pieces, although they may have been categorized as post-minimalist, have, I feel, moved past it into something new.
Tell me about your work with the contemporary ensemble OCTET and Belarca Records. How do both of these organizations feed your compositional creativity, and how have they furthered the cause of new music with listeners?
OCTET uses the instrumentation of a scaled-down big band to express my sound in a different way. This ensemble of instruments normally associated with jazz gives my music a distinct sound, a sound I am intimately familiar with, the sound of my youth and my roots as a musician.
I founded Belarca Records to share my music and that of others with whom I share a similar connection. With Belarca, I can choose all aspects of the aesthetic direction from the music, artists, recording, art design and liner notes to how it is distributed and marketed. I have the creative freedom to release music from my past and present when, where and how I choose.
The music that drew me to your work was Quiet Rhythms, which you worked on in 2010-2013 and was recorded by multiple pianists, to rave reviews. Please tell me more about these four books of piano music, especially why each one is a set of 22 short pieces that consist of 11 Prologues and 11 Actions.
Initially, I set out to write music I could perform myself. I wanted to write relatively short pieces. They are almost like sketches and some have been adapted for various ensembles. The pieces are split into two parts: prologue and action. The action is syncopated and was written first. Then I wrote the prologue as one would for a book, typically a short section that “explains” what will happen. In this case, the prologue outlines harmonically a sort of rhythmically “smoothed-out” version of the action. When I began writing these pieces I did not intend to write a large piano cycle, but I had many ideas and decided that 11 prologues and actions per book was a nice prime number with a total of 22 pieces in each book. Serendipitously, completing four books gave a total of 88 pieces, a symbolic number for the modern piano, and a good place to end the cycle.
In the past you’ve stated that Quiet Rhythms is the composition of which you are most proud. Given the success of the music you’ve written for OCTET and films, why is this collection so close to your heart?
This music is a distillation of my ideas over many years. It is music that I initially worked out at the piano. They are a physical extension of my hands that idiomatically shape piano gestures I have internalized over many years.
The French musicologist David Sanson wrote that Quiet Rhythms is “a rarefied tightrope between vulnerability and sublimity.” How do you feel this highlights the music’s “quietness,” which is about “connecting to the inner voice?”
This remark by David Sanson appeared in the liner notes of pianist Nicolas Horvath’s album Quiet Rhythms - Book I released in 2022. I think this quote sums up the essence of the music. These pieces and their musical language necessitate a clarity of performance and execution. The vulnerability of a tightrope walker and the sublimity they attain through their process is somewhat akin to the performer and listener. Both must quiet the mind and connect to one’s inner voice to reach a quiet state. It is like a flow state, or as they say, being in a zone or focusing on one’s breath. The sounds can transport you to an inner voice or meditative calm.
Given the success of others’ recordings of Quiet Rhythms, why did you feel it was important to release the recording of your one-hour concert of selections from this collection—a concert you recorded live in 2013?
I was motivated to write music that I could play and perform. I worked on this task with the support of a great pianist and composer named Katrina Krimsky. We had several coaching sessions to prepare for performances in San Francisco and New York. I did not plan on recording this performance at Spectrum NYC back in 2013, but their innovative engineer Lawrence de Martin records all their concerts. I had the files on my hard drive for seven years and during COVID lockdown in 2020 I revisited them and liked what I heard. Although it has been 10 years since I recorded this concert in 2013, releasing this album was important for me as a means to share my interpretations in a venue that took on for me something mystical. This location at 121 Ludlow was a Jewish burial society in the 1890s. In the stairwell leading up to the space was a stone plaque with founders names engraved in Hebrew. The sound of these names were familiar to me. Each time I performed at Spectrum, I was moved by the experience. As far as interpretation goes, these recordings are simply my take and not by any means definitive. Interpretation for me is more than what is on the page. It is also the emotional state of the performer and external factors which contribute to the end result. Every performer brings to a performance the influence of their own musical experience and the many different kinds of music they have played.
What unique perspective do you think composers bring to their own works that other performers—regardless of how gifted they may be—can’t capture?
Composers, as you say, deliver a unique perspective. When listening to a composer perform their music, they reveal their technical abilities, their command of the material and perhaps, why and how they created the music in the first place. In my case, I bring my sense of groove to the this music. Groove is not really talked about much in classical music. My experience playing jazz, salsa, samba and bossa nova influences how I “groove” with this music. Also, I never had a Lisztian-like technical prowess so I focused on a lyrical, rounded and warm tone-quality. One of the many great teachers I was fortunate to study with was Pauline Lindsey. She was a student of Artur Schnabel and we talked a lot about tone. Both she and another influential teacher Robert Zemurray Hirsch guided me with Josef Lhevinne’s principles of tone and touch.
The beautiful selections you perform on Quiet Rhythms are a blend of stillness and movement, simplicity and complexity, light and darkness. Given the many layers of emotional depth and meaning, what special challenges do they present to pianists?
Thank you. I think the foremost challenge is feeling the groove and understanding the origin of the rhythmic syncopations. Groove, as much as harmony and rhythm, plays an important part in interpreting this music. Also, creating nuance and tone color at soft dynamics, as well as contrasts and control at louder dynamics. For example, one technique I use is crossfade dynamics where the right hand gradually becomes softer as the left hand gradually becomes louder and vice versa. The subtle variations in harmony, rhythm and dynamics require that these pieces be carefully treated and held in the hand like fine crystal or else the smallest of smudges will be apparent.
When asked about your artistic mission statement in the past, you’ve said, “Write what speaks your truth.” Which of your truths do you feel you share in Quiet Rhythms?
I have always tried to achieve something unique, whether it was playing jazz piano as a teen or composing. What I’ve realized over time is that you must write the sound that you are passionate about and not care what others think. If you are passionate about the work, dedicate yourself to it, and persevere even under unrelenting rejection, circumstances and pressure, then, you are speaking your truth. Your gems, so to speak, will gradually emerge over time. It is not an easy path and one must be fully committed.
Do you sell piano solo sheet music for Quiet Rhythms? If so, where might we purchase it?
Putting on my commercial hat, the sheet music for Books I - IV is available at my website. On Bandcamp, when you purchase the sheet music to Book I (the copies are signed), you receive as an added bonus the digital download of the album Quiet Rhythms - Book I by great French pianist Nicolas Horvath. And when you purchase the sheet music on Bandcamp to Book II, (also signed), you receive as an added bonus the digital download of my album Quiet Rhythms Live at Spectrum NYC.
What current and future projects are you most excited about?
I am currently working on the second act of my opera Fordlandia. The story focuses on the struggle for succession of Ford Motor Company between Henry and his son Edsel whom he destroys both physically and emotionally. Only through the strength and wisdom of Henry and Edsel’s wives, Clara and Eleanor, is the company saved from ruin. Henry was a titan of industry. A singular disruptor of the way people lived in America, he created a paradigm shift in society through his innovation of the assembly line and the distribution model. Because of his affordable, mass-produced cars, literally the landscape of America changed to accommodate the millions of vehicles sold. His story is as relevant as ever, shining a light on modern day billionaire disrupters. A pathological behavior emerges for the world to see, bent on maintaining their advantage, influence and power at all costs and even to those that are dearest. It is a modern day Faustian bargain. The end result was an overwhelming impact on society, at best egregious, whose full implications are as yet unknown.
I am also working on a new piano cycle called Loud Harmonies. The music focuses on bright, luminous harmonies, exuberant lyricism and exhilarating rhythmic textures.
What advice can you offer to young composers seeking to create careers for themselves in music?
You must pursue this endeavor with ardor, patience, have a dedicated work ethic, persevere, accept rejection as a part of the process, and realize there is music for everyone. Listen to and respect your music teachers, and then, go find your own wisdom. Forge your path with determination and carve out a niche. Do not consider music as a life pursuit unless you are committed like your life depended on it.
American composer William Susman has created a distinctively expressive voice in contemporary classical music, with a catalog that includes orchestral, chamber, and vocal music, as well as numerous film scores. In addition to his work as a composer, he spearheads the contemporary ensemble OCTET and Belarca Records. AllMusic calls him an exemplar of "the next developments in the sphere . . . [of] minimalism," and textura describes him as “not averse to letting his affection for Afro-Cuban, jazz, and other forms seep into his creative output.” His music has earned praise from The New York Times for being “vivid, turbulent, and rich-textured,” from Gramophone as “texturally shimmering and harmonically ravishing,” and from Fanfare for being "crystalline . . . and gloriously lyrical."
Susman’s training as a pianist in both jazz and classical traditions was influential in his evolution as a composer, and his music is notable for its integration of a variety of influences, including free jazz, Afro- Cuban music, and other non-Western folk traditions. With this toolkit, he crafts a bold sound world both familiar and complex, with highly energetic grooves and hypnotic modal-based harmonies. His orchestral and chamber music has been widely performed in the U.S., Europe, China, and Japan.
Susman’s music is uniquely suited to film, and he is recognized for scoring such award-winning works as Native New Yorker (Best Documentary Film, Tribeca Film Festival), which was honored in 2015 as one of the best in American experimental film by the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.