Night on Bald Mountain

The symphonic musical picture "NIGHT ON BALD MOUNTAIN" by MODEST MUSSORGSKY is inspired by Russian literary works and legends and recreates the witches' sabbath on the eve of the feast of St. John the Baptist (June 24^th , Midsummer Day). The score was completed on June 23^rd , 1867. The composer describes its programmatic content: the gathering of witches and their gossip, Satan's journey, the "indecent praise" of Satan and the Sabbath... The music is saturated with vivid contrasts, originally expressed through the dialogue between string and wind instruments, which, as he shares, perfectly suit the character of the witches' Sabbath gathering... The theme has long fascinated him, and the young Mussorgsky particularly values this work, but for his circle of composers it is too unusual, and Mily Balakirev refuses to perform it. In order to preserve the most valuable parts of the music, he included it, reworked for vocal soloists, choir, and orchestra, in two subsequent projects—the joint opera-ballet Mlada (1872) and his comic opera Sorochinsky Fair (1880). During his lifetime, Mussorgsky never heard the symphonic picture performed. Five years after his death, in 1886, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov published Night on Bald Mountain as a "fantasy for orchestra" with his own orchestration, based on the latest version of Mussorgsky's music for Sorochinsky Fair. After its presentation at the World's Fair in Paris in 1899, this version was considered Mussorgsky's final version for 70 years and thus entered the repertoire of orchestras. Later, the music gained great popularity with Walt Disney's animated film Fantasia (1940), with an arrangement by Leopold Stokowski based on Rimsky-Korsakov's version. According to various researchers, the original score of the symphonic picture Night on Bald Mountain was performed once at the Philharmonic Society in St. Petersburg, then it was brought to the West by conductor Nikolai Malko and performed in England in 1932, and the following year in other countries, but it remained virtually unknown until its publication in 1967, 100 years after its completion by Mussorgsky.