Night on Bald Mountain

Night on Bald Mountain The music of this erratic Russian genius has been subjected to all manner of arrangements and orchestrations. Rimsky-Korsakov tells us that Mussorgsky’s original versions of the work that he was to arrange as Night on Bald Mountain were impractical.

Night on Bald Mountain (also known as A Night on the Bare Mountain) composed by Modest Mussorgsky, was inspired by Russian literary works and legend. Mussorgsky made a witches’ sabbath the theme of the original tone poem, completed on June 23, 1867 (St. John’s Eve).

This is only his opinion; one of these quite viable originals has in fact recently been revived and recorded. If he was not one of the great masters of instrumentation, Mussorgsky seems at least to have known the sound he wanted. But it is Rimsky’s admittedly excellent orchestration of Bald Mountainthat continues to live on in the concert hall.

This precipitated a long discussion through the program about the secret supervillain cabal of men’s figure skating, which made us all the more excited to see Lysacek show up with slicked-back hair and what appeared to be fluffy black armor.

I hope you enjoy these 13 different versions ranging from Progressive Rock to Jazz, Electronic to New Age with some Disco and Novelty thrown in for good measure.