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The Great Valley is a series of pieces for which the catalyst was La Grande Vallée, a suite of twenty-one monumental canvases by the American painter Joan Mitchell. The Great Valley, No. 5 (Amaryllis) is an approach to the paintings and to the story that provoked them.
La Grande Vallée was a real place described to Mitchell by a friend, the composer Gisèlle Barreau, for whom it had been a secret childhood retreat. According to Yvette Y. Lee, in The Paintings of Joan Mitchell, the valley may have represented to Mitchell “complete freedom from facades and boundaries, and harmony with nature” as well as “a refuge from mortality.” N.B.
The organ part in section ii may be played on harmonium or on any other small organ or electronic keyboard.
