Mussorgsky - Night On Bald Mountain [HD]

Night on Bald Mountain (Russian: Ночь на лысой горе, Noch' na lysoy gore), refers to 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, Ivanova noch' na lysoy gore) on the theme of a witches' sabbath occurring on St. John's Eve, which he completed on that very night, June 23, in 1867. Together with Nikolay 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, Miliy 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.
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. Although still rarely performed, it has started to gain exposure and become familiar to modern audiences.

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 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.

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". 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.

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 the black god Chernobog), but on Mussorgsky's original in orchestration. However, like Rimsky-Korsakov himself, Stokowski had no copy of the original tone poem from 1867, so he did what he felt Mussorgsky would have done, being familiar to some extent with Mussorgsky's style, having conducted the U.S. premiere of the original version of Boris Godunov in 1929, and having subsequently produced a symphonic synthesis of Boris for concert purposes. The Stokowski arrangement is only rarely heard today outside of Fantasia, Rimsky-Korsakov's orchestration being the concert favorite, and the one most often programmed.

The piece also appears in the Disney/Square Enix crossover video games Kingdom Hearts (video game) and Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance. They play during the boss fights against Chernabog in both games.