Night On Bald Mountain
Mussorgsky’s (1839-81) Night on Bald Mountain was actually titled St. John’s Night on the Bare Mountain. St. John’s Night, or St. John’s Eve, is the night before the Feast of St. John which happens to fall around the summer solstice. Eastern Europeans have long celebrated it with a mixture of pagan trick-or-treat traditions and religious observances and bonfires. The first version appeared in 1867 and was revised around 1872 and again in 1880. In this last version he added a hauntingly beautiful quiet ending in which a church bell announces the dawn and daybreak chases away the evil sprites. Night on Bald Mountain has remained an audience favorite ever since its appearance in Walt Disney’s landmark movie, Fantasia.
Read more about this topic: St John's Eve
Famous quotes containing the words night, bald and/or mountain:
“The LORD went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Exodus 13:21,22.
“It was a transmogrifying bee
Came droning down on Chucky’s old bald head
And sat and put the poison. It scarcely bled,”
—John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974)
“Come live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Or woods or steepy mountain yields.
And we will sit upon the rocks,
And see the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.”
—Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593)