Night on Bald Mountain
Inspired by Russian literary works and legend, Mussorgsky composed a "musical picture", St. John's Eve on Bald Mountain (Russian: Иванова ночь на лысой горе, romanized: Ivanova noch′ na lysoy gore) on the theme of a Witches' Sabbath occurring at Bald Mountain on St. John's Eve, which he completed on that very night, 23 June 1867.
To salvage what he considered worthy material, Mussorgsky attempted to insert his Bald Mountain music, recast for vocal soloists, chorus, and orchestra, into two subsequent projects—the collaborative opera-ballet Mlada (1872), and the opera The Fair at Sorochyntsi (1880).
Half a century later, the work obtained perhaps its greatest exposure through the Walt Disney animated film Fantasia (1940), featuring an arrangement by Leopold Stokowski, based on Rimsky-Korsakov's version.
In 1860 Mussorgsky informed Balakirev that he had been commissioned to write one act of an opera on this subject:[5] I have also received some very interesting work which must be prepared for the coming summer.
However, it is believed that Mussorgsky did not hear Liszt's work until 1866, by which time he was planning the orchestral tone poem St. John's Eve on Bald Mountain (see below).
[citation needed] In 1866 Mussorgsky wrote to Balakirev expressing a desire to discuss his plans for The Witches, his informal name for his Bald Mountain music.
Модест Мусоргский[8]Mussorgsky described the piece in a letter to Vladimir Nikolsky: So far as my memory doesn't deceive me, the witches used to gather on this mountain, ... gossip, play tricks and await their chief—Satan.
[12] Russian legend tells of a witches' sabbath taking place on St. John's Night (23–24 June) on the Lysa Hora (Bald Mountain), near Kyiv.
The following program is taken from the score: The first re-modelling of the tone poem took place in 1872, when Mussorgsky revised and recast it for vocal soloists, chorus, and orchestra as part of act 3 that he was assigned to contribute to the collaborative opera-ballet Mlada.
Mussorgsky referred to this piece under the title Glorification of Chernobog (Russian: Славленье Чёрнобога, Slavlenye Chornoboga) in a list of his compositions given to Vladimir Stasov.
[14] In 1930, Pavel Lamm, in his edition of Mussorgsky's complete works, referred to the piece as Worship of the Black Goat (Russian: Служение чёрному козлу, Sluzheniye chornomy kozlu).
In act 3, the shade (ghost) of Mlada leads Yaromir up the slopes of Mount Triglav to a pine wood in a gorge on top of the mountain.
Instantly the scene changes to a hall in Egypt, where the shade of Cleopatra attempts to entice Yaromir's soul to her side with a seductive dance.
They exploit the superstitious fears of the fairgoers, who believe that the location of the fair this year is ill-chosen, it being the haunt of a devil who was thrown out of hell, took to drinking, went broke, pawned his jacket, and has returned to claim it.
Mussorgsky sent the following program to Vladimir Stasov about three months after its composition in 1880: The peasant lad sleeps at the foot of a hillock at some distance from the hut where he should have been.
In his sleep appear to him: Паробок спит у подножия пригорка, далеко, вдали от хаты, куда бы должен попасть.
Во сне ему мерещатся: As part of The Fair at Sorochyntsi: Concert version: In the years after Mussorgsky's death, his friends prepared his manuscripts for publication and created performing editions of his unfinished works to enable them to enter the repertoire.
The majority of the editorial work was done by Rimsky-Korsakov, who in 1886 produced a redacted edition of Night on Bald Mountain from the Dream Vision of the Peasant Lad vocal score.
Originally composed in the sixties under the influence of Liszt's Danse Macabre (Totentanz) for the piano with accompaniment of orchestra, this piece (then called St. John's Eve, and both severely and justly criticized by Balakirev) had long been utterly neglected by its author, gathering dust among his unfinished works.
When composing Gedeonov's Mlada, Mussorgsky had made use of the material to be found in Night, and, introducing singing into it, had written the scene of Chernobog on Mount Triglav.
При сочинении гедеоновской «Млады» Мусоргский воспользовался имеющимся в «Ночи» материалом и, введя туда пение, написал сцену Чернобога на горе Триглаве.
Третий вид ее образовался при сочинении «Сорочйнской ярмарки», когда Мусоргскому пришла странная и несуразная мысль заставить парубка, ни с того ни с сего, увидеть шабаш чертовщины во сне, что должно было составить некое сценическое интермеццо, отнюдь не вяжущееся со всем остальным сценариумом «Сорочинской ярмарки».
На этот раз пьеса оканчивалась звоном колокола деревенской церкви, при звуках которого испуганная нечистая сила исчезала.
Задача была трудная, удовлетворительно разрешить которую мне не удавалось в течение двух лет, между тем как с другими сочинениями Мусоргского я справился сравнительно легко.
[20] Night on Bald Mountain was performed at the second concert, on 29 June 1889, where it followed Borodin's 'Polovtsian Dances' and 'Polovtsian March' from Prince Igor in the second half of the program.
[b] Millions of 20th-century listeners owe their initial acquaintance with Mussorgsky's tone poem to Leopold Stokowski's version, specially produced for Walt Disney's 1940 film Fantasia.
Stokowski stated that he based it on the Rimsky-Korsakov arrangement in form and content (though notably without the "fanfare" that marks the entrance of Chernobog), but on Mussorgsky's original in orchestration.
At the climax of the 1939 film version of The Wizard of Oz, an arrangement of the piece is heard, while the Wicked Witch of the West pursues Dorothy Gale and her friends.
"Night on Disco Mountain" is based on the first portion of Mussorgsky's composition, complementing the composer's unusual selection of instruments with "wah-wah electric guitar solo, synthesized bells, a constantly throbbing electric bass, hi-hat, snare drum, and a variety of exotic bongos and percussion instruments", "various studio sound effects", and "an otherworldly synthesized chorus".
[24][25] The German progressive thrash metal band Mekong Delta features a cover of the piece on their fourth studio album, Dances of Death (and Other Walking Shadows).
