Nicholas Britell Didn’t Know How ‘Succession’ Would End — but He Had Its Musical Conclusion Ready

Composer Nicholas Britell didn’t know what was going to happen in Season 4 of “Succession,” let alone the series’ final moments, but he instinctively knew he had already figured out what music would be playing under those last images of the Roy family saga.

“I didn’t tell [series creator] Jesse [Armstrong] this, but I’d written a piece that just felt like a conclusion to the show, somehow on an emotional level,” Britell told IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit podcast.

In the video above, the composer traces the roots of that concluding composition (“Andante Risoluto”) back to the piece he wrote for the last scene of the “Succession” pilot (“Andante Con Moto”), and how he then riffed on it for Season 2, Episode 2 (“Andante Con Moto”), when a hollowed-out Kendall rides off on a motorcycle, after icily shuttering Vaulter and shoplifting a Bic lighter.

“That piece evolved,” said Britell, who liked the concept of the underlying piece used in the pilot and made a concerted effort to return to it once a season for key moments of conclusion. “I would start it the same way, and then it would take a turn, and it would go in a whole other place.”

In Season 3, when the FBI raided Waystar’s offices, the composer returnd to the composition, this time creating a far grander version with strings and orchestra (“Andante Agitato”), lending itself to the moment Logan Roy is rendered powerless and facing what might be the end of his media empire.

When Britell returned to it for Season 4, he focused on finding a chord progression that could capture a “cycles of time” feeling that the composer sensed would be appropriate for the finale.

“It’s not all sadness and pain, I wanted to give a sense of possibility,” said Britell of the music that would eventually accompany our final glimpses of Roman (at the bar), Shiv and Tom (in the back of the car, distant, but reluctantly holding hands), and Kendall (walking toward the Hudson River at sunset). “We’ll never really know where this is all headed after this show, but I wanted there to be a kernel of, ‘Is there a future? What is that future?’ It’s not all darkness.”

Britell reported that, when he eventually played the track for Armstrong, the series’ creator said, “‘I think that’s the ending of the show.’ And it was so fascinating because that was before we had actually worked on the last episode, and yet, I had thought that it might be too.”

While on the hour-long podcast, the composer reflected on completing his first television series, which he worked on over the course of seven years. One of the big takeaways for Britell was the importance of end credit music. In an age of streaming services automatically kicking you over to the next piece of content seconds into the credits, Britell explored how end credit music could enrich the viewer’s experience

“End credit sequences matter, and give you a chance to reflect on what you’ve just watched,” said Britell. “One idea that I explored further [for end credits] was the idea of possibly using a choir because there is an intensity and a gravitas, and I always felt, ‘OK, what’s the furthest you can go with that kind of intensity of emotional musical experience?’ And certainly, the choir’s the most full-on version of that.”

Using choir always felt like a bridge too far. Even when Britell wrote the elegy for Logan’s death in “Conor’s Wedding,” he found a choir was “too much.” There was something about reflecting with the characters on what they’ve experienced, where human voices felt like stepping outside the narrative by commenting on a sense of finality.

“But there was this idea of could there be a conclusion,” said Britell, who kept the idea of using choir in his back pocket for the final end credit sequence after the series cut to black. “What if the whole thing ended with voices? As sort of a human statement after all of this pain and complication, there’s almost something comforting about human voices there to me.”

That choir comfort wasn’t simply for the characters suffering their final blow or even the audience reeling from the tragic conclusion and saying goodbye to a story they had invested in so much.

“This chapter is over, this moment of life is over, and in a sense too, it’s for all of us on the show,” said Britell. “I feel personally, this whole chapter of our lives is over. It’s been about seven years of my life, from when I first [joined] the pilot to now. It’s sad, and do think it has finality to it.”

To hear the final choir, watch the video at the top of the page. To listen to the full discussion, subscribe to the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast below:

The Filmmaker Toolkit podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, and Stitcher. The music used in this podcast is from the “Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present” score, courtesy of composer Nathan Halpern.