Wally Gunn | Stairwell Echoes

Stairwell Echoes
2022 (05:00)
Celeste and harpsichord
Commissioned by Astra Chamber Music

‘Stairwell Echoes’ was written for inclusion in a concert in August 2022 by the venerable Melbourne institution Astra Chamber Music, directed by John McCaughey. The concert, curated by composer Andrew Byrne, premiered American composer Tom Johnson’s 1982 work ‘Rational Melodies’ to an Australian audience, alongside works by several Australian composers who had been invited to write new short pieces on keyboard instruments in response to the featured work. Of the twenty-one ‘Rational Melodies’—all of them single-line melodies for any combination of instruments, based on Johnson’s explorations of various patterns and permutations—number ten really appealed to me because it uses a pattern that works through its permutations very strictly and diligently, and still somehow creates a soundworld that’s mournful and moving. I attempted to emulate this idea in my piece. I started with a very simple pattern of a scale rising and falling, then layered the scale over and over in canons. As it cycles and as each layer is added to the texture, more and more melancholy creeps in.

— Wally Gunn, 2022

First performed by
Peter Dumsday, celeste, and Joy Lee, harpsichord, for Astra Chamber Music

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