A Night on Bald Mountain

This piece of music reminds me of a graveyard. Does that sound weird? Well if you have ever seen the original Fantasia movie, perhaps it doesn't. The animation shows lots of spirits flying around during the night. This piece of music has two very distinct parts to it. The first part sounds somewhat scary and is a sort of fast dance. The second part sounds like a reverie and begins with bells. The flute and clarinet melodies accompanied by a harp in this section are just absolutely gorgeous.

In the Fantasia animation, when the bells chime, the spirits go back from where they came from so they are gone before dawn. I suppose it's like Halloween in a way- the spirits come out at night, but disappear before a certain time the next day.

I have played this piece before with one of the youth orchestras I took part in. Leonard Slatkin of the DSO came in to conduct us during one of our rehearsals on this piece, it was quite exciting! And of all the violinists he could have called on to play the col legno part (where you bounce the wood of your bow against the strings)- he called on me! I was a little nervous, but it was totally worth it. Not many people my age can say they have worked with a conductor like Leonard Slatkin- definitely a memory I will never forget.

Here is Modest Mussorgsky's night on Bald Mountain played by the philharmonic orchestra of Ural at Nantes conducted by Dimitri Liss

And also, here is the Fantasia animation of the same piece