After his 5th Symphony, Christopher Gunning felt the need to tackle something on an altogether smaller scale - something simpler, more direct, clearer in its orchestration and in a way more 'classical' than its predecessors.

With his 6th Symphony, he returned to the idea of a single span incorporating several sub-sections, a form which he had already explored in his 1st, 3rd and 4th Symphonies. As a result, the work feels more like a tone-poem than a conventional symphony.

Night Voyage is a sea piece, and was born on a rainy evening standing by the Mersey river. To the West, a patch of orange lit the darkening sky, seabirds called mournfully as he watched a large grey freighter slipping majestically out to sea. Where was it going what would befall it?. The result is a tone poem which has obvious parallels with life depicting a journey through an emotional crisis to a resolution of sorts.

The theme of journeying is carried through to his 7th Symphony. Like the 6th, the music is continuous but this time falls into six main sections, or 'phases', all founded in various ways on the rising whole-tone scale heard at the very start.