Night on Bald Mountain

Night on Bald Mountain (Russian: Ночь на лысой горе, romanized: Noch′ na lysoy gore), also known as Night on the Bare Mountain, 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 (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. Together with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Sadko (1867), it is one of the first tone poems by a Russian composer.
Although Mussorgsky was proud of his youthful effort, his mentor, Mily Balakirev, refused to perform it. 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). However, Night on Bald Mountain 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, described as a "fantasy for orchestra." Some musical scholars consider this version to be an original composition of Rimsky-Korsakov, albeit one based on Mussorgsky's last version of the music, for The Fair at Sorochyntsi:
It is through Rimsky-Korsakov's version that Night on Bald Mountain achieved lasting fame. Premiering in Saint Petersburg in 1886, the work became a concert favourite. 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. Mussorgsky's tone poem was not published in its original form until 1968. It has started to gain exposure and become familiar to modern audiences.
The original Russian title of the tone poem, Иванова ночь на лысой горе, translates literally as Saint John's Eve on Bald Mountain, usually shortened to Night on Bald Mountain. However, due to several ambiguities, the composition is also known by a number of alternative titles in English.
The Russian word "ночь" (noch′) is literally "night" in English, but idiomatically this would refer to the night following St. John's Day, variously observed between 21 June (the summer solstice) and 25 June. The night before St. John's Day is usually referred to as "St. John's Eve" in English; Russian does not make this distinction.
Bald Mountain is the most familiar translation of "лысой горе" (lysoy gore) in English, and is also the most literal. The adjective "bald" is commonly used in English place names for barren hills, mountains, and other features, and so is also idiomatic. However, because the most familiar use of "bald" describes hairlessness, this part of the title is also known as "Bare Mountain". The use of "bald" to describe barren landscapes is common in European languages. In French, the piece is known as Une nuit sur le mont Chauve and in Italian Una Notte sul Monte Calvo (A Night on Bald Mountain).
Some performances of the work also insert the article "the" before "Bald Mountain" or "Bare Mountain". Articles are not used in Russian, but are often applied to nouns when translating Russian into languages that regularly use articles, such as English and French. However, because the title of the work refers to a specific place called "Bald Mountain", an article would not normally be used in English.
A sheet of paper apparently found among Mussorgsky's manuscripts contains the following statement:
This curious fragment, dated 25 December 1858, has been interpreted as an indication of Mussorgsky's intent to write an opera on the subject of Gogol's short story St. John's Eve (Russian: Вечер накануне Ивана Купала, Vecher nakanune Ivana Kupala, St. John's Eve). Gogol's tale contains the elements of witchcraft common to other stories in the Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka collection, but does not feature a Witches' Sabbath. No further plans for this project were mentioned.
The theme of a witches' sabbath, the central theme in all subsequent Night on Bald Mountain projects, appears to have been derived from the nonextant play The Witch (Russian: Ведьма, Ved′ma) by Baron Georgiy Mengden, a military friend of the composer. In 1860 Mussorgsky informed Balakirev that he had been commissioned to write one act of an opera on this subject:
However, as with the previous project, it is unknown whether any materials were written down, and, if so, whether they were transferred to subsequent projects.
Rimsky-Korsakov declares in his memoirs (Chronicle of My Musical Life) that in the early 1860s Mussorgsky, under the influence of Franz Liszt's Totentanz, had written a version of the Bald Mountain music for piano and orchestra. 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). No trace of a work for piano and orchestra has survived outside Rimsky-Korsakov's recollections, so it is assumed that the score has been lost, or, more likely, that it never existed.
In 1866 Mussorgsky wrote to Balakirev expressing a desire to discuss his plans for The Witches, his informal name for his Bald Mountain music. In early June 1867, he began composing the orchestral version of the piece. The score is inscribed with the following details:
Mussorgsky described the piece in a letter to Vladimir Nikolsky:
He also stated—incorrectly, as it turned out—that he would never re-model it: "with whatever shortcomings, it is born; and with them it must live if it is to live at all." Having finally completed the work, Mussorgsky was crushed when his mentor Mily Balakirev was savagely critical of it. The score is peppered with comments such as "the devil knows what [this is]", "what rubbish", and "this might be of use", probably pencilled in by Balakirev. This "first version" was put aside, and did not appear in print until 1968, in a new edition prepared by Georgiy Kirkor.
The original tone poem, St. John's Eve on Bald Mountain (1867), was not performed until the 20th century. Musicologist Aleksandra Orlova claims that the original manuscript of this version was discovered in the library of the Leningrad Conservatory by musicologist Georgiy Orlov in the late 1920s, that it was performed once by the Leningrad Philharmonic Society, and that Nikolay Malko brought along a copy of it when he emigrated to the West. Gerald Abraham states that this version was performed by Malko on 3 February 1932, apparently in England. Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi claims that Malko performed this version in several countries in 1933.
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. In this new version the music was to form the basis of the Night on Mount Triglav (Russian: Ночь на горе Триглаве, Noch′ na gore Triglave) scene.
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. 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).
Mlada was a project doomed to failure, however, and this "second version" languished along with the first. The score of Glorification of Chernobog has not survived, and was never published or performed.
The following scenario is taken from Rimsky-Korsakov's later "magic opera-ballet" Mlada (1890), based on the same libretto by Viktor Krïlov.
Mlada is set in the 9th or 10th century city of Retra, in the (formerly) Slavic lands between the Baltic Sea coast and the Elbe River. This would be the land of the pre-Christian Polabian Slavs, in the region corresponding to the modern German areas of Holstein, Mecklenburg, or Vorpommern.
The Mlada scenario is the only Bald Mountain setting that mentions a "Mt. Triglav", where the supernatural events of act 3 take place. The name Triglav (tri three + glav head) happens to be the name of an ancient three-headed Slavic deity or a trinity of deities, and is also the name of a famous peak in Slovenia, which is, however, some 750 km (470 miles) distant.
Voyslava and her father Mstivoy, the Prince of Retra, have poisoned Mlada, the betrothed of Yaromir, Prince of Arkona. Voyslava sells her soul to Morena, an evil goddess, to obtain her aid in making Yaromir forget Mlada so she may have him to herself. 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. Mlada's shade joins a gathering of the spirits of the dead. She expresses in mime to Yaromir the wish to be reunited with him in the kingdom of dead souls. He is eager to join her. However, there is a rumbling sound announcing the appearance, apparently from underground, of the following fantastic characters (many of whom also appear in Dream Vision of the Peasant Lad from The Fair at Sorochyntsi, described below):
The evil spirits sing in a strange demonic language, in the manner of the "demons and the damned" of Hector Berlioz's La damnation de Faust. Morena calls on Chernobog to help make Yaromir forsake Mlada. Kashchey determines that Morena and Chernobog will be successful if Yaromir is seduced by another. Chernobog commands Yaromir's soul to separate from his body, and for Queen Cleopatra to appear. 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. She almost succeeds in doing so when a cock crow announcing the break of day causes the entire infernal host to vanish. Yaromir awakens and ponders the mysterious events he has witnessed.
The work's "third version", the Dream Vision of the Peasant Lad (Russian: Сонное видение паробка, Sonnoye videniye parobka), was composed eight years later when Mussorgsky revived and revised the second version to function as a "dream intermezzo" in his opera The Fair at Sorochyntsi (1874–80), a work which was still incomplete at the time of his death in 1881. Mussorgsky's piano-vocal score is dated 10 May 1880.
Mussorgsky originally chose the end of act 1 of the opera as the location for his choral intermezzo. It is now generally performed in the Shebalin version (1930) of the opera, where it is relocated to act 3, just after a partial reprise of the peasant lad's dumka. The theme of the dumka also serves as one of the main themes of the new quiet ending.
The Dream Vision of the Peasant Lad was first performed as part of Vissarion Shebalin's performing edition of The Fair at Sorochyntsi, which premiered in 1931 in Leningrad at the Maly Theater, conducted by Samuil Samosud. Shebalin's orchestration was published by Muzgiz (IMSLP) in 1934.
The Fair at Sorochyntsi is set in and around the Ukrainian village of Velyki Sorochyntsi, some 500 kilometers east of Kyiv and the famous "Bald Mountain" (Lysa Hora), in the year 1800.
The peasant Solopiy Cherevik, his domineering wife Khivrya, and pretty daughter Parasya are visiting the Sorochyntsi Fair. Parasya is wooed by Gritsko Golopupenko, the "peasant lad" of the title. Gritsko desires Cherevik's consent to marry his daughter. Although Cherevik is not against the match, his wife objects because Gritsko had thrown mud in her face on the way to the fair. Gritsko strikes a bargain with a gypsy to assist him in winning Parasya. 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. After various pranks and comic circumstances, Gritsko achieves his goal and all ends happily.
At the end of act 1, Gritsko falls asleep some distance from the fair, and, because there has been talk of devilry, has a dream of a witches' sabbath. The following remarks are taken from the score (page numbers supplied):
Surviving the transfer from Glorification of Chernobog are the same supernatural characters, although Morena has been replaced by Death (Russian: Смерть, Smert'). Chernobog and his accomplices form a kind of Six Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The demon language the characters sing, of which Mussorgsky was contemptuous in a letter, is preserved.
Mussorgsky sent the following program to Vladimir Stasov about three months after its composition in 1880:
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. Rimsky-Korsakov discusses his work on the piece, designated a "fantasy for orchestra", in his memoirs, Chronicle of My Musical Life (1909):
Rimsky-Korsakov made "corrections" typical of him, as he did with Khovanshchina, and was later to do with Boris Godunov, preserving the general thematic structure, but adding or omitting bars, and making modifications to melody, harmony, rhythm, and dynamics.
Rimsky-Korsakov's edition was completed in 1886, and published in the same year by V. Bessel and Co. It received its premiere on 15 October 1886 in St. Petersburg's Kononov Hall, performed by the orchestra of the Russian Symphony Concerts. Rimsky-Korsakov conducted the performance himself, and gives the following account of it in his memoirs, Chronicle of My Musical Life (1909):
The Western European premiere performance of his edition was likely the one described further on:
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. Rimsky-Korsakov later mentions another performance of the piece, taking place on 25 April 1890, at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels.
The following program is printed in Rimsky-Korsakov's edition of Night on Bald Mountain, published in 1886 by V. Bessel and Co.:
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. However, like Rimsky-Korsakov, Stokowski had no copy of the original tone poem from 1867, so he did what he felt Mussorgsky would have done, being somewhat familiar with Mussorgsky's style. Stokowski had conducted the U.S. premiere of the original version of Boris Godunov in 1929, and subsequently produced a symphonic synthesis of Boris for concert purposes. Despite the success of Fantasia, Rimsky-Korsakov's orchestration remains the concert favorite, and the one most often programmed.
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.
David Shire arranged an orchestral disco adaptation, "Night on Disco Mountain", for the 1977 motion picture Saturday Night Fever. The arrangement was released as part of the film's soundtrack. "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".
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).
The piece plays in The Ren & Stimpy Show episodes "Space Madness", "Stimpy's Invention" and "Ren's Bitter Half."
The second main level of Earthworm Jim ("What the Heck?") opens with this theme.
The Nintendo game Donkey Kong Country 2 has a version of the song called "Haunted Chase" in the level "Haunted Hall".
Yoko Shimomura arranged a version of the piece for the international release of the 2002 video game Kingdom Hearts. Re-arrangements of that version were then used in Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance and Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix.
An arrangement of the piece by Tobias Lilja is heard in LittleBigPlanet PS Vita during the fight against the Joy Extractor in the final level, "In The Clutches Of Evil".
A section of the piece is found in the 2014 video game Skylanders: Trap Team during the final boss fight with the villain Kaos.
A version of the piece was arranged for the game The End Is Nigh titled Golgotha – Night On Bald Mountain (Mussorgsky 1867) by video game composer team Ridiculon (Matthias Bossi and Jon Evans).
The Russian dancer and choreographer Igor Moiseyev also created a piece from variations of the same theme.
The piece appears in the 2022 film Babylon.
The piece from Fantasia once again returns in the 2023 short Once Upon a Studio.