William Susman: Quiet Rhythms Book I
Collection 1001 Notes
Many a composer fervently wishes to be regarded as singular and as standing apart from others. Listening to this first set of pieces from the Quiet Rhythms series by San Francisco-based William Susman (b. 1960), the impression forms of a composer perfectly content to be associated with a particular movement and its central figures, specifically classical minimalism and, of course, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, and Steve Reich. If that's true, I'm going to further wager that that willingness bespeaks a humble confidence on Susman's part that certain qualities also distinguish his music from theirs. Put simply, while he might be happy to be considered a member of that group, his music argues he's more than a mere imitator. Adapting minimalism's emphasis on cycling rhythms, pulsation, and tonal harmonic language to his own purposes, Susman has produced a distinctive take on the form by weaving into his material elements of Afro-Cuban music, American jazz, and his own sensibility.
While the eleven compositions were all written by Susman, the release is as much Nicolas Horvath's considering he's the sole performer (he also recorded, produced, and mastered the material). Playing a Steinway piano (Model D, No. 248200), Horvath recorded the material at La Fabrique des Rêves in Misy-sur-Yonne, France during June 2020. Clocking in at about four hours, Quiet Rhythms is comprised of four books containing eighty-eight pieces, all of it written between 2010 and 2013. Horvath's assured rendering of the first set constitutes its first full recording, with many of the tracks premiere recordings, and the pianist also apparently plans to record the other three in the near future. He's certainly a solid choice of interpreter. Among the material he's presented are marathon live performances of the complete piano works of Satie and Glass. The eleven pieces here don't rival those on duration grounds, but they do call upon the pianist's technical facility and his ability to sensitively translate Susman's harmonies and rhythms into physical form.
As described by David Sanson in the release's liner notes, each of the eleven pieces comprises two parts, a prologue and subsequent action. Contrary to expectation, however, the action was composed first, the prologue created after it as a kind of “smoothed-out” version of what follows. In each case, an elegant introductory section blossoms into a more urgent invention. Pulse is a primary focal point in the action sequences, but pulse here is anything but static when Susman uses the opportunity to explore irregularity, instability, and unpredictability, and each energized piece ebbs and flows for anywhere from three to seven minutes before ceding the stage to another. Characteristic of his music, these densely layered, often haunting settings mesmerize with intertwining patterns and fascinate too for they way their prologues smoothly transition into the explorations that follow. Interest is upheld by contrasts in dynamics and mood, with some of them aggressively pitched and others gentler. One of the primary pleasures afforded by the material involves hearing how Susman uses chords and patterns to tease out a melodic figure rather than voice it explicitly. Differences aside, each insistently chiming exploration flows gracefully, and consequently one surrenders unreservedly to the music's hypnotic pull for the full measure of the recording's fifty-one minutes. One also comes away from the release convinced that Susman couldn't have chosen a better partner for the project than Horvath, whose connection to the material is apparent from start to finish.April 2022