"If I have my own style, I'm not aware of it." Corigliano's style lies in his free mixture of various styles available to the contemporary composer. This is apparent in his Voyage of 1983, in which he visits unabashedly the style of earlier twentieth-century composers.

In 1971, John Corigliano set Charles Baudelaire's (1821 - 1867) L'invitation au voyage (Invitation to a Journey), in an English translation by Richard Wilbur, for a cappella chorus. Twelve years later, Corigliano created an instrumental version of the work, scoring it for flute and strings.

Like much of Baudelaire's poetry, L'invitation au voyage is filled with sensual imagery and is visually evocative—the type of poem that presents a great challenge for a composer. Corigliano's lush setting of the poem aptly conveys the sensual nature of the text, and this lushness is deftly transferred to instrumental forces.

In L'invitation au voyage, the refrain, "There, there is nothing else but grace and measure, richness, quietness and pleasure," is sung to the same music each time it appears. This device remains in the instrumental Voyage, in which music echoes the highly suggestive refrain text.

Voyage begins with the flute alone, delivering a slow, contemplative melody that is taken up and finished by the strings. From the very opening, it is clear that Voyage is an atmospheric piece, with timbre, harmony, and character reminiscent of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings (1936) and Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910).

With the first appearance of the refrain, the strings take on a larger role in the presentation of material, although the primary melody is generally in the flute part. The refrain theme perfectly reflects the words of the absent text, especially the qualities of "grace," "richness," and "quietness." This segment leads to a minor climax before a reduction in intensity ushers in a new section with a minor mode melody. Partly developmental, the section features imitative dialogue between the flute and a solo violin. The refrain returns, this time in the very low register of the flute, before more expansive wandering occurs. A final appearance of the refrain signals the end of the piece, Corigliano repeating the final note of the melody to affect a strong close.

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