Sunday Morning on Bald Mountain: The Surprising Encouragement in a Scary Story

One of my earliest cinematic memories is being hurried out of the theater by my parents in order to miss the ending of Disney’s 1940 edition of Fantasia. Dread filled my heart as the low ominous notes of Modest Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain” echoed throughout the theater behind us, disappearing as we fled to the safety of the hallway. My parents were not motivated so much by satanic panic as practical protectiveness. I was a sensitive child who wept through The Little Mermaid. No telling how I might react to Satan and his dancing demons on the big screen. Three decades passed before I encountered Fantasia’s forbidden finale. What I saw moved me to tears and a thrill of hope, for the truth it contained.

“Night on Bald Mountain,” originally titled “Saint John’s Eve on Bald Mountain,” is, in brief, the musical story of a Satanic dance party, on the night before the feast of St. John the Baptist. In a similar tradition to the origins of Halloween, in which quite literally all hell breaks loose the night before a Holy Day, St. John’s Eve is a particularly active night in the spooky spirit realm. Across many cultures bonfires are lit to ward off evil spirits and sorcery. A bald mountain, sometimes translated “bare mountain,” according to Slavic folklore, is a popular spot for a witches’ sabbath. In a letter describing his composition, Mussorgsky wrote of Bald Mountain,

The witches used to gather on this mountain, . . . gossip, play tricks and await their chief—Satan. On his arrival they, i.e. the witches, formed a circle round the throne on which he sat, in the form of a [goat], and sang his praise. When Satan was worked up into a sufficient passion by the witches’ praises, he gave the command for the sabbath, in which he chose for himself the witches who caught his fancy.[1]

Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881) composed in an era where two key elements bore particular influence on his work: Nationalism and Romanticism. That Mussorgsky’s treatment of “Bald Mountain” leaned into Slavic folklore was not unusual for his work. Both Mussorgsky and his contemporaries sought to amplify a sense of Russian identity through their art.

Another element of significance is that Mussorgsky composed during the Romantic era. Romanticism as an era swelled with emotion, and composers used music like paint on a canvas to create great depth of feeling. Naturally, storytelling through music blossomed from this exploration of expression. The tone poem became popular during this era, in which the structure of the piece was dictated by a story. In an age of movie soundtracks, this type of structure seems commonplace, but at the time tone poems were a new and exciting phenomenon to audiences. From this marriage of Russian identity and Romanticism sprung Mussorgsky’s inspiration for a tone poem surrounding the mythology of Bald Mountain. Combining elements from several literary sources, Mussorgsky worked feverishly on this composition, describing,

I wrote St. John’s Eve quickly, straight away in full score, I wrote it in about twelve days, glory to God . . . While at work on St. John’s Eve I didn’t sleep at night and actually finished the work on the eve of St. John’s Day.[2]

Despite his excitement over the piece, it was met with harsh criticism and remained largely untouched for the duration of his lifetime.

Five years after Mussorgsky’s death, his friend and fellow composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsekov discovered the piece, and published it, but not before editing and orchestrating what he believed to be some of the more demonic and dissonant portions. Rimsky-Korsekov’s revision of the piece is the version that eventually gained popularity. One of the greatest catalysts for its fame came in 1940, when Disney made the daring choice to include this piece in the musical anthology Fantasia, bringing a visual storytelling element to this nightmarish tale.

The segment opens on an ominous and craggy mountain, cloud-streaked sky lit by a full moon. Against the backdrop of frantically driving strings, shrill arpeggios of woodwinds burst through like shrieks. As low brass pound ominously like a kind of sinister fanfare, a slow zoom in reveals the mountain’s peak to be a satanic figure. Batlike wings unfurl like a curtain, exposing his unmistakable horned head, with glowering yellow eyes. His shadow creeps over a sleepy village in the mountain’s valley and with a mighty outstretched arm he calls forth all manner of ghoulish and demonic figures. He seems almost godlike in a sort of twisted creation narrative. He seems to grow with each quickening measure, as these figures swarm around him so numerous until with a crescendo the mountain erupts in hellish flames.

The music transforms then into the sinister frolic, a nod to the folk dances in the Slavic holiday’s history. With glee he observes the dancing figures, shooting flames, conjuring more chaos in the mix. What hope does the sleepy village have with such unfettered evil afoot? He raises his arms in a grand triumphant gesture, as the music blares a deep and imposing swell. A silence falls, but for a distant tolling of the bell. He pauses and lowers his hands. With each successive tolling of the bell, he winces as though in pain. Light flickers across his face, not the dancing yellow of the flames before him but a lightning flicker. The posture of his body changes quickly into a cower, defeated, despair. Demons, too, shield their faces from the tolling of the bell, slinking away. The music becomes gentle, almost mournful as the creatures scatter. The satanic figure hides his face from the light, as the bell tolling continues he raises his hands in defeat as the sky behind him fades to twilight. Wrapping his wings around him once more he becomes nothing more than the landscape of the mountain.

It is then, as the sun rises on the mountain that the source of the bell and by extension, the downfall of the demonic revelry, becomes apparent. A line of lights becomes the glow of candles, held by those answering the call of the church bells. The rock formation becomes gothic arches crowned by the glittering of the lights of the faithful. Disney’s Fantasia tacks on an additional element to at this point, to drive the point home. Mussorgsky’s final tranquil notes fade into ambient notes of a choir, and then solidify into a choral setting of Franz Schubert’s “Ave Maria.” In an introduction to this segment Deems Taylor describes this portion as “Ave Maria, with its message of the triumph of hope and life over the powers of despair and death.”[3] The line of lights continues into a forest, the trees forming gothic arches, and the lights grow only brighter as the darkness of the forest envelops them. Eventually the scene fades to black, except for a single shaft of light that grows ever brighter until the trees part like a curtain, a new mountain appears in the background, and dawn glows in rays of brilliant orange.

Whether you prefer your Bald Mountain served with or without an Ave Maria chaser, the power in the resolution of both remains the same. Just when evil seemed to be at its zenith, a church bell became its death nell. To adapt a famous Martin Luther hymn lyric, “one little bell shall fell him.” After a night of so much noise and darkness, it is a tranquil image of the faithful, each carrying a simple light that sends terror into the hearts of the terrible. Or, more accurately, it is the One they serve, the One they worship, the One they trust, who sends the evil scattering in fear. The soundtrack of our world can feel a little like the first seven minutes on Bald Mountain, at times terrifying and ominous, at times dismally chaotic. The sight of a wincing, cowering devil is a heartening reminder of the One that ultimately causes the fearful one to fear. The image of the faithful saints inspires hope as well. Ultimately, faithfulness is greater than power, stillness more powerful than chaos, and light more powerful than darkness.

The prince of darkness grim,
We tremble not for him
His rage we can endure
For lo his doom is sure.

[1] Musorgskiy, M., M. P. Musorgskiy: Letters, 2nd edition, Gordeyeva, Ye. (editor), Moscow: Muzïka (Music, publisher), 1984.

[2] ibid.

[3] “Fantasia” (1940) and “Fantasia 2000” (1999), Buena Vista Pictures Distribution