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:
“We can remember as easily as the day we were born
The maggots we passed on the way and how the day bled
And the night too on hearing us, though we spoke only our childish
Ideas and never tried to impress anybody even when somewhat older.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“He was as bald as a hump.
His ears stuck out like teacups
and his tongue, my God, his tongue,
like a red worm and when he kissed
it crawled right in.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“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)