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:
“All night in the unmade park
After the railings and shrubberies
The birds the grass the trees the lake
And the wild boys innocent as strawberries
Had followed the hunchback
To his kennel in the dark.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“The noise of life begins again,
And ghastly through the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day.”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“A mountain chain determines many things for the statesman and philosopher. The improvements of civilization rather creep along its sides than cross its summit. How often is it a barrier to prejudice and fanaticism!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)