Volver a la Montana

Volver A La Montana (Return to the Mountain) is based on several folk tunes of the Quechua ("Inca") people of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. Near the end of the movement, the folk song Sepracion (Separation) is quoted briefly. The words are "My mother told me no to cry, though I'm leaving the mountains forever." Over the past century, many of the Quechua people have had to leave their villages forever because of the economic difficulty of trying to maintain their traditional mountain lifestyle.

The movement opens with a stately processional, followed by a fast dance that uses the characteristic Latin American alternation or simultaneous appearance of two- and three-beat patterns. In the return to the processional theme near the end of the movement, muted trumpets echo the flutes, as sound would echo in the mountains.