Piranesi by Stephen Andrew Taylor

Program note

The flute has always been one of my favorite instruments; in high school I played piano for the amazing flute sonatas by Prokofiev and Poulenc. Ever since then I’ve wanted to write a flute sonata, but I never had the chance until Kristin Pisano contacted me about the festival at Fort Hays State University—an exciting opportunity! This piece was commissioned by the FHSU New Music Esnemble and inspired by the 2020 novel of the same name by Susanna Clarke. From its description:

Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousand upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth iteslf. He lives to explore the house.
There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other—who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.

In this piece I hope you can hear Piranesi playing his bone flute, and hear the ocean tides surging, and the endless statues. And I hope you read the book—it’s magnificent. Piranesi is dedicated to Kristin Pisano and flutist Hilary Shepard, who gave the first performance with pianist Gustavo do Carno.