I have just returned from a week of being “off the grid” … on an 80-acre island in Maine.

My first summer vacation was to the sea, and I wrote briefly about the power of the big water – its infiniteness, its desolate surface while teeming with life under the waves, its capacity to be calm or wild, deadly or life-giving.

This second vacation was on the ocean, but unlike the flat beaches of North Carolina, the rocky, cold Maine seaside is more of a setting for majestic mountains than for surfing and sunning. A visit to the mountains is equally refreshing, but of a completely different nature. Raising your head to the mountains makes you feel tall and strong. The cooler air is invigorating, not drowsy. The harsh angles and sharp peaks speak a different language than the tips of waves. And while mountains are more finite than the sea (you can see where they start and stop), they are unchanging.

So, how do these differences play out in music? There’s this romantic version; and of course the most famous scary mountain of all. Walter Piston‘s setting is majestic, angular, and specifically about the New England mountains.