‘Succession’ composer Nicholas Britell on using choirs this season, the Italian influence, Kendall’s music cues and a key Billy Joel cover.
Dealmaking and double-crossing ran deep in the third season of HBO’s “Succession.” Power dynamics shifted as did loyalties to patriarch Logan Roy, played by Brian Cox. For composer Nicholas Britell, that meant finding a score with a lot of movement. “In season three, there’s a lot of this feeling of things being a little off-kilter,” says Britell of his approach to the score. “Where’s the power center? Maybe it’s not where we think it is.” Britell spoke with Variety over Zoom ahead of the season 3 soundtrack’s release on Friday. With the twists and turns leaned into the gravitas, and the darkness as the Roy siblings (Roman played by Kieran Culkin, Shiv played by Sarah Snook and Kendall played by Jeremy Strong) continued to battle it out for control of Waystar Royco. The season saw the Roys descend upon Chiantishire, Italy for the matter of a wedding. In this case, the wedding of Caroline (Harriet Walter), the mother of Kendall, Roman and Shiv. “I knew we were going to Tuscany early on, and with the Italian musical tradition, there’s a classical lyrical quality to that sound,” explains Britell. With the “Milan – Promenade” cue, Britell incorporated that sense of lyrical Italian grandeur and yearning. “There’s a feeling of the timelessness of that part of the world, the history and how that parallels with the sort of current mythmaking that the Roy family has of themselves at the same moment in time.
