Witching Hour Secrets of Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain
The Listen Guide

Where to Point Your Ears

Before we begin, I'd suggest you listen to this piece the way you'd follow a story, with the different instruments playing different characters. The strings do most of the restless work, so whenever you hear fast, scurrying notes chasing each other up and down, you're hearing the night come alive. Listen for the piccolo and flutes flashing high above, then for the trombones, tuba and bass drum, which make everything feel heavy and dark when they arrive. Near the end a tubular bell and the harp bring a softer light, and if you keep track of those few voices, you'll never get lost.

What's in a Name

I first called this music St. John's Eve on Bald Mountain, because Russian legend says the witches meet on that hill on the night of 23 to 24 June. That date meant a lot to me, and I finished orchestrating on 23 June 1867, the eve of St. John's Day, so the calendar and I were in perfect agreement for once. The shorter title, Night on Bald Mountain, is the one that stuck, and you will sometimes also see it called Night on the Bare Mountain. I like the short version best because it names only what matters, one night and one place where nobody sensible would choose to be.

A Form That Makes Its Own Rules

Choosing the form was an adventure, because I didn't want a sonata or a rondo, which are built on themes that leave and come back in a tidy order. Instead I wrote a tone poem, which is one of the first Russian ones, and in a tone poem the story decides the shape while the music simply follows it. My original has four parts, Assembly of the Witches, Satan's Cortège, Black Mass and Sabbath, and the version most people know today was made by Rimsky-Korsakov in 1886, runs about 12 minutes, and adds a calm ending of its own. I'll walk you through these sections one at a time, so you can hear how the mood changes from one to the next and carries the story along.

Section 1: Witches Arrive Without Sending an RSVP

The first section, Assembly of the Witches, begins with an uneasy, hurrying motion that seems to come from every direction at once. Don't wait for a tune you can hum yet, because this part is about atmosphere, and the unease grows a little with every bar. The notes climb and rush, as if more and more creatures are pouring toward the mountain from the dark. By the end the whispering has swelled into a rush, and you can tell that something far bigger is about to step in.

Section 2: The Guest of Honor Is Not Someone You'd Invite

Satan's Cortège changes the mood completely, because the scurrying gives way to a heavy, stately tread. Here the low brass takes the lead, and the music moves like a procession that knows nobody is going to stop it. It feels less like panic and more like menace, and that shift from nervous speed to proud, slow power is what makes the arrival so striking. Listen for the swagger in it, because this is a ruler making an entrance, and the whole orchestra bows its head.

Section 3: A Service Nobody Should Attend

The Black Mass is the darkest and most solemn stretch of the piece, and everything slows down to make room for a twisted kind of ceremony. A deep bell tolls, and the low instruments murmur underneath as if they were chanting something best left unheard. The mood is no longer wild but ritual and cold, and the quiet here is more frightening than any noise. Notice how it holds the tension like a breath you can't let out, because the story needs that stillness before the storm breaks.

Section 4: The Dance Floor Gives Up on Order

Then comes the Sabbath, where the music breaks loose into a whirling, furious dance that is the fastest and wildest of all. The whole orchestra joins in, with cymbals, bass drum and tam-tam crashing in between the swirling strings and the shrieking woodwinds. It builds and builds, each wave louder than the last, until it feels as if the mountain itself might shake loose. The turn from heavy ritual to this frenzy is the great jolt of the piece, and it shows how the music tells the story without a single word.

Section 5: Morning Tidies Up

The last section isn't part of my 1867 plan, because the calm ending comes from Rimsky-Korsakov, who drew it from music of Gritsko's aria in Sorochintsy Fair. After all that uproar the music relaxes into a gentle, peaceful close, and you can almost feel the light coming back to the sky. His version was an immediate success and became a concert favourite, which is a pleasing outcome for a piece that I never heard performed myself. My own original, with its four parts, only came out in print in 1968, so for a long time most listeners knew the night through his hands.

Your Turn to Press Play

Now it's your turn to meet Night on Bald Mountain for yourself, so press play and let the music carry you along. While it plays, keep a few of our guideposts in mind, such as the scurrying strings, the heavy brass, the tolling bell and the calm that comes at the end. You don't need to know anything about classical music, because the story is there in the sound, and it will pull you in. I hope you find the journey through this night as thrilling as I found it when I wrote it.