When I think of an ideal pianist to play my music, it is someone like Nicolas Horvath. He possesses phenomenal technique and stamina combined with a profound curiosity and intellect. From his marathon concerts of Satie and Glass, to a myriad of contemporary composers, I would describe his performances and many recordings with words of joy, beauty and wonder.
I feel very fortunate that Nicolas chose to record all 11 pieces from Book I for this disc. It is the first time they have all appeared together on one album. Also, several of the tracks are premiere recordings. They are stunning interpretations that for me fluctuate between spiritual reflection, contemplation and astonishment.
In his inimitable way of dedicating himself to a composer’s work, Nicolas plans to record Books II, III, and IV in the near future.
As with this album, his deep exploration of Quiet Rhythms is bound to offer gifts and insights into these pieces that are both unexpected, powerful and sublime. A project of this magnitude is rarely undertaken and it reveals Nicolas as a bold and fearless performer.
French pianist Vanessa Wagner and singer/songwriter Arthur H appeared together to celebrate Piano Day 2020. The concert was filmed on March 9, 2020 at Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris.
Philipp Glass – Glassworks, ouverture
Hans Otte – Das Buch der Klange, Part X
Bryce Dessner – Ornament 3
William Susman – Quiet Rhythms, Prologue and Action No. 9
Philipp Glass – Etude No. 9
Philipp Glass – Etudes No. 5
Poèmes :
Jacques Prévert – Sables mouvants. Chansons. Sanguine
Henri Michaud – Poteaux d’angles (extrait court)
Gaston Miron – La marche à l’amour (extrait)
Yves Bonnefoy (extrait)
Arthur H – Anatalius sans remord ni regret
Arthur Rimbaud – L’éternité
On the face of it this album of chamber works by the accomplished Chicago-born composer/pianist William Susman is very accessible, delivering ingenious variations on Minimalism’s familiar techniques from a confident and fertile musical imagination. But bit of exploration into Susmnn’s biography reveals an intriguing story, a capsule history, in fact, of where modern American music has traveled over the past decades.
Born in 1960, Susman studied both classical and jazz piano. He is probably the only performer who learned from both a student of Artur Schnabel’s (Pauline Lindsey) and a pianist with Louis Armstrong (Steve Behr). He founded his own jazz ensemble when he was 13 and later performed with big bands and Afro-Cuban groups. That’s merely the beginning of a complex web of influences that led him to gravitate toward Xenakis and Ligeti in the Eighties. At 25 he enjoyed a major breakthrough by becoming the youngest composer to be awarded a commission from Harvard’s prestigious Fromm Foundation. There were graduate studies in computer-generated music at Stanford and an invitation from Pierre Boulez to engage with IRCAM in Paris.
For a composer rooted in the European avant garde, using arcane methods based, for example, on Fibonacci sequences to generate rhythmic repetitions, his eventual encounter with American Minimalism came as an “aesthetic shock” and a kind of spiritual awakening. In a booklet note Susman relates that “The way Riley, Reich, and Glass incorporated the things they liked—Indian or African influences, for example into their music led me to think about the things I knew and admired.”
As listeners we are so accustomed to following our personal tastes that it might be hard to relate to a young composer tightly identified with mid-century Modernism (and receiving commissions and praise for adhering to that idiom), but Susman’s awakening moment was a kind of liberation. In a much publicized shift, another arch Modernist, the conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, had a similar conversion to Minimalism as a composer.
In none of these cases does the shift represent a move from complexity to simplicity. No one could be more theoretical than Glass or more steeped in the Modernist styles he rejected. The hidden texture inside today’s Minimalism consists of personal and private influences being brought to bear. For Susman, his style today is inspired by Afro- Cuban montuño, medieval hocket and isorhythm from the École de Notre-Dame de Paris, and jazz.
I’ve gone into these facets out of fascination but also to illustrate how these four chamber works came about—you couldn’t guess it by ear alone. The instrumentation varies from a duo for flute and piano (Motions of Return) to a standard piano trio with violin and cello (Clouds and Flames), with a sextet, Camille, and quintet, The Starry Dynamo, that call upon the largest complement of the Rome-based ensemble, Piccola Academia degli Specchi (Little Academy of Mirrors), which is flute, alto saxophone, violin, cello, and two pianists (they play four-hand in Camille). While listening to Camille, which opens the program, I thought that Susman should consider writing film scores, because he uses Minimalism to express a range of feelings that can be unusually tender or bold. My impression was justified, as I discovered later, because Susman has composed a number of award-wining film scores.
Needless to say, Minimalism has evolved into more than one thing, and for me, Susman’s version is appealing because it isn’t mechanical and the harmonic shifts don’t occur with glacial slowness. This is quick-witted music guided as much by emotional change as rhythmic and harmonic modulations. The flute and piano duo, Motions of Return, is necessarily fairly monochromatic, so here the focus is on rhythmic changes that might well be mathematically based. The quintet and sextet, since they use piano and alto sax, are more colorful and jazzy, I’d say, although Susman is capable of considerable surprise and unpredictability.
In all, I recommend this release to fans of Minimalism and more broadly to general listeners interested in an intriguing American voice. The performances are energetic and committed, the recorded sound excellent.
Huntley Dent
Four stars: An enjoyable and original version of today’s Minimalism
In the Action of Quiet Rhythms no.1, the clave appears immediately in the right-hand in measures 1 and 2 playing a 3-2 clave over the left-hand playing a 2-3 clave. Layering the clave in both hands creates a 3 over 2 polyrhythm in measure 1 and, a 2 over 3 polyrhythm in measure 2 and, so on.
Starting at measure 89 through to the end at measure 175, there is an amplitude cross- fade every four bars. The 3-2 clave, clearly standing out in the right-hand, gradually morphs to the left-hand. The perception of the 2 bar clave and 1 bar polyrhythm moves in and out of focus as the volume changes.
The amplitude cross-fade creates somewhat of an aural M.C. Escher effect where the ear may focus on either the left or right hand depending on the volume just as the eye may focus on the bird or the fish in varying degrees of clarity.
M.C. Escher
In the Prologue of Quiet Rhythms no. 18. a 3-2 clave rhythm starts at measure 5, but using accents on top of an even 16-note contrary motion pattern that contracts and expands every measure.
At measure 21 the accents switch to a 2-3 clave expanding in contrary motion every two measures.
And, then at measure 33, back to a 3-2 clave in a new texture of two-note chords alternating 5ths and 4ths over even single-note 16ths alternating 5th and 4th motion.
In the Action of Quiet Rhythms no.18, the clave rhythm is augmented in a 4/2 meter creating a slow meditative quality. The middle line or L.H. is playing the primary 3-2 clave in measures 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8 at half speed against the high and low pitched octave drones in the top and bottom staves.
Within each measure there is a 3 against 2 polyrhythm (as in Action 1 above). In measure 1, the 3 against 2 polyrhythm sounds in the middle and top staff. In measure 2, it starts in the bottom staff and then moves from the middle to the top. In measure 3, it traverses middle, top, middle, bottom, middle.
The overall design is a 3-2 clave hocketing pattern of the top and bottom “drone voices” within an 8-bar isorhythmic cycle. It begins again at measure 9 for another eight measures contrasting in a major key and flipped with the bottom staff sounding first.
Up until measure 17, the middle staff left-hand chords are a static back-and-forth of 3rd and 4th intervals. At measure 17, they change to a rising pattern of 5ths and 4ths for eight measures.
At measure 25, the pattern goes back to the rhythmic design of the opening measures 1-8, but the intervallic movement is the opposite: The top staff moves up and the bottom moves down while the middle moves 4ths to 3rds.
Action 18 follows a 32-bar AABA form found in much of American popular song. AABA corresponds to the measures as follows: A (1-8) A (9-16) B (17-24) A (25-32)
An important note is that throughout this series of piano pieces the Action is always composed first. In most cases, the Prologue is sort of a rhythmically smoothed out version of the Action which typically explores a syncopated pattern.
Listen to Quiet Rhythms no. 1 performed by Francesco Di Fiore
Listen to Quiet Rhythms no. 18 performed by Erika Tazawa
World premiere of William Susman’s Material Rhythms for percussion quartet performed by Reinhardt University’s Percussion Ensemble under the direction of Olivia Kieffer.
I recently asked composer/percussionist Olivia Kieffer to talk about her work on some of my percussion music. She and her ensemble, the Reinhardt University Percussion Ensemble, premiered my quartet Material Rhythms. She also arranged some of my piano music from the series Quiet Rhythms. -William Susman
Before we met, Bill and I exchanged emails in preparation for the premiere of his percussion quartet “Material Rhythms”. One of the first pieces of his that I listened to was a recording of Francesco Di Fiore on piano playing “Prologue and Action 1” from Quiet Rhythms Book I.
Francesco Di Fiore performs Prologue and Action 1 from Quiet Rhythms in a film by Valeria Di Matteo.
I loved it so much, and was immediately taken by the beautiful ringing tones and thought how marvelous it would sound on vibraphones and marimbas. I asked Bill if I could arrange it for a keyboard quartet of 2 vibes and 2 marimbas, and he was on board! I stayed up all night and arranged “Action” and sent it to Bill in the morning. He came back with excellent suggestions, and I let the arrangement sit for a good while.
When Bill came to Reinhardt to hear the Percussion Ensemble premiere Material Rhythms, he gave me the bound score of Quiet Rhythms, Book I. Once I had that, I was able to truly start translating the piano score into a living breathing keyboard quartet. Taking apart the notes and rhythms in each hand, sometimes keeping them the same and sometimes rearranging them, and fitting them in creative ways to the range and tone of the keyboards was a lot of fun and a new experience for me.
Turns out this solo piano music fits beautifully and naturally on marimba and vibes. Since it is less Right-Hand/Left-Hand and more Hands-Working-Together, it is physically familiar for percussionists to play.
Prologue 1 (excerpt) from Quiet Rhythms for piano
“Prologue 1” starts with ascending and descending 16ths, and introduces the hand-to-hand clavé.
Prologue 1 (excerpt) from Quiet Rhythms arr. Olivia Kieffer
In “Action 1”, there is a constant clavé rhythm, which changes from 3/2 to 2/3 alongside the harmonic changes. It starts with a busier amount of pitches, then simplifies, then moves into big chords.
Action 1 (excerpt) from Quiet Rhythms for piano
The clavé is notated in the piano score with beams that cover both staves, to make the pattern visually clear. I had to find an idiomatic way to notate this for percussionists which led me to figuring out a 4-mallet sticking that would naturally ascend like the “right hand” of the piano. Another idea was to use harder mallets in the right hand.
Action 1 (excerpt) from Quiet Rhythms arr. by Olivia Kieffer
Letter D in Action 1 is the first time that all four parts are playing together, it’s the first time full chords appear, and is one of two spots where the vibraphones represent one hand and the marimbas the other. Though Prologue has slightly similar music in its last section; it is pianissimo and subtle. So it felt important to bring those Action 1 clavé chords in with a bang!
Action 1, mm.84-96 from Quiet Rhythms arr. Olivia Kieffer
Below, is the original with the clavé chords entering at measure 89.
Action 1, mm.85-96 from Quiet Rhythms for piano
In Material Rhythms, each movement has its own rhythmic patterns which are passed from instrument to instrument, player to player, in various combinations. The first 3 movements are Wood (2 blocks), Metal (3 metals), and Skin (2 drums). The last movement is a combination of all 3. This passing rhythmic material creates its own melodies, particularly in “Metal”. I cut pipes to be very close in pitch to each other (in relation to low-middle-high across the players), to create a sort of Balinese Gamelan, shimmery sound. “Metal” has constant 3s, and the rhythms come out from the melodies of the pipes, and the stark dynamic contrasts.
III. Metal (excerpt) from Material Rhythms for percussion quartet
Something I love about Bill’s music is that he is a master of layering. This is something that can be discovered while listening to the music and also from studying the score. The depth of his music comes to life, though, when being played. There are beautiful patterns which fit themselves into all the chords. Like a beloved book often returned to, and every time something new appears, so these layers are found over time by the performer. His music speaks for itself! He can create a pattern that is, in a single line, harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic. Quiet Rhythms is beautiful and uncomplicated, yet goes as deep as one is willing to take it. When the music speaks on its own, the details are fresh to see and to work with. -Olivia Kieffer
Valeria Di Matteo is a video artist based in Sicily. She creates stunning videos that combine music, text and visuals. Recently, she created two beautiful videos. They are promotional album trailers for contemporary music CDs. One was for the composer/pianist Francesco Di Fiore and the other for pianist Erika Tazawa.
Her works are fantastic film miniatures that capture in moving pictures the essence of the music. Enjoy!
-William Susman
Zefir Records presents Pianosequenza, Francesco Di Fiore, pianist:
Belarca Records presents Rhythm of Silence, Erika Tazawa, pianist:
Quiet Rhythms is a series of short piano pieces that are written in pairs consisting of a prologue and action. In creating each pair, the action is composed first and is syncopated and rhythmic. The prologue uses the same harmonic patterns of the action but is non-syncopated or “smooth”.
The prologue is performed first before the action of the same number. Each book contains 11 prologues and actions and, currently there are four books. You can view the first page of each piece here.
Here is the opening to Action 1 of Quiet Rhythms:
The action was written first and then the prologue was derived from it. Prologue 1 below uses the same harmony of Action 1 and, the rhythmic pattern is “smoothed out”. This process is followed with all 44 prologues and actions in Books I – IV.
In this particular prologue, the harmony of measure 1 corresponds to measures 1 – 4 in Action 1 above. Measure 2 here corresponds to measures 5 – 8 in Action 1. Measure 3 corresponds to measures 9 – 12 in Action 1 and, measure 4 corresponds to measures 13 -16 in Action 1. This reductive technique is applied in all of the prologues throughout Quiet Rhythms.
Francesco Di Fiore with Prologue 1 from Quiet Rhythms
I met William Susman in 2011, in the Netherlands, for the first time. I was in Middelburg to attend a performance of my music by ensemble Piccola Accademia Degli Specchi. On tthe same occasion, the ensemble performed the beautiful suite Camille by William.
I was already familiar with William’s music thanks to composer Matteo Sommacal, my dear friend, who invited me to listen to his works. That was a fantastic discovery; William’s music world is absolutely fascinating, very original, personal, with a precise identity and so different from any other music or composer.
From left to right composers Francesco Di Fiore, Douwe Eisenga, William Susman, and Matteo Sommacal in the lobby of Zeeuwse Concertzall, October, 2011
Recently I had the honor to perform a selection from Quiet Rhythms for solo piano, in the Netherlands, at the same venue (Zeeuwse Concertzall) where William’s music and mine was performed in 2011. On that special evening in Middelburg, four composers were present attending a stunning performance in a unique gathering. In some spiritual way, I wanted to recreate that special event performing William’s, Matteo Sommacal’s, Douwe Eisenga’s and my music as well. Four different composers, four different experiences, four different sound worlds but one same language spoken.
Italian Composer/Pianist Francesco Di Fiore
Approaching William’s music has been a very singular experience. When you think you have a clear idea of a composer’s purpose suddenly you realize that something is hiding behind it, and behind it, again and again, and so on. I will keep playing William’s music for a long time, as it piques my curiosity and I have so much to learn from him! – Franceso Di Fiore
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Listen to Francesco Di Fiore perform Quiet Rhythms and watch Valeria Di Matteo’s video by clicking here.
When Francesco Di Fiore decided to perform William Susman’s piece Quiet Rhythms in his Piano Solo project, I was so thrilled to make a new video for it as I already knew William’s music and I loved it so much.
From Valeria Di Matteo’s Video for Quiet Rhythms – Prologue 1
Creating this video was quite natural to me. William’s notes often painted some kind of non-defined geometrical images in my mind and I already had the idea of a video entirely shot inside a piano, also inspired by a beautiful set of close-up images shot by Francesco himself inside his piano.
From Valeria Di Matteo’s Video for Quiet Rhythms – Prologue 1
The result is a first part, Prologue, in black and white, quite linear, abstract and geometric; Action, the second part, is more narrative showing a journey inside the piano. This instrument is so beautiful as a still object but there’s also so much life inside it to show while a piece is being performed and usually no one can admire it during a concert.
From Valeria Di Matteo’s Video for Quiet Rhythms – Action 1
Geometry, order of the shapes, harmony and colors of materials were to me the perfect subjects for this remarkable piece of music. – Valeria Di Matteo
From Valeria Di Matteo’s Video for Quiet Rhythms – Action 1
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Watch Valeria Di Matteo’s video and listen to Francesco Di Fiore perform Quiet Rhythms by clicking here.
Music, Polyphony and Polyrhythm 