Modeste Mussorsky: Night on Bald Mountain

Night on Bald Mountain
Opera Cover (Melbourne)
Modeste Mussorsky:
"Night on Bald Mountain"
Edited by Peter Y. Chou
WisdomPortal.com

Bald Mountain
Disney's Fantasia (1940)

Night on Bald Mountain (1867) is a series of compositions by Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881). Inspired by Russian literary works and legend, Mussorgsky composed a "musical picture", St. John's Eve on Bald Mountain on the theme of a witches' sabbath occurring on St. John's Eve, which he completed on that very night, 23 June 1867. In a letter to Vladimir Nikolsky, Mussorgsky wrote: "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. On his arrival they, i.e. the witches, formed a circle round the throne on which he sat, in the form of a kid, and sang his praise. When Satan was worked up into a sufficient passion by the witches' praises, he gave the command for the sabbath, in which he chose for himself the witches who caught his fancy. So this is what I've done. At the head of my score I've put its content: 1. Assembly of the witches, their talk and gossip; 2. Satan's journey; 3. Obscene praises of Satan; and 4. Sabbath .. The form and character of the composition are Russian and original... I wrote St. John's Eve quickly, straight away in full score, I wrote it in about twelve days, glory to God... While at work on St. John's Eve I didn't sleep at night and actually finished the work on the eve of St. John's Day, it seethed within me so, and I simply didn't know what was happening within me... I see in my wicked prank an independent Russian product, free from German profundity and routine, and, like Savishna, grown on our native fields and nurtured on Russian bread." The work was never performed in any form during Mussorgsky's lifetime. In 1886,
five years after Mussorgsky's death, Rimsky-Korsakov published an arrangement of the work, that premiered in Saint Petersburg (1886), that became a concert favourite. In 1940, the work obtained its greatest exposure through the Walt Disney animated film Fantasia featuring an arrangement by Leopold Stokowski. (YouTube: Fantasia; Leonard Berstein; Claudia Abbado; Jose Serebrier; Valery Gergiev; Sir Adrian Boult; Riccardo Muti). Sheet Music below: