Nicholas Britell is not a household name. But this is a household sound anywhere that the residents watch Succession. Like me.
Cleverly blending hip-hop and late-18th century ‘classical’ piano, its shuffling beats behind that tinkling piano motif immediately create a tingle of anticipation among addicts of the show (me, and quite possibly you).
The result, he says, is a “strange mixture of absurdity and gravitas that is the essence of the show,” describing it as a mix of “dark courtly classical sound and oversize hip-hop beats and 808s.”
Britell is a Juilliard graduate who worked in Wall Street as a currency trader at Bear Stearns… until 2008… making him perfectly placed to capture the anxiety and tension that Succession so successfully creates.