gtr. Duration: 8:00

   by Paul A. Epstein

The Great Valley, No. 7 was suggested by and intended for the guitarist Peter Segal, who died in 2006, shortly after it was completed. In an extraordinary act of courage and generosity, Peter gave unstintingly of his remaining time and energy to advise me on technical details and finally to provide a complete fingering for the piece.

The Great Valley, No. 7 is part of a series of pieces inspired by Joan Mitchell’s monumental Grande Vallée suite of twenty-one paintings. 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. Mitchell knew the valley only through her friend’s memories. For me it exists through the additional mediation of Mitchell’s extraordinary paintings.