Does Anybody Remember the Disco Version of "Night on Bald Mountain"?

[musicradio77]

For those of you who loved the "Night on Bald Mountain" sequence from "Fantasia", there was a disco version that inspired "Fantasia" entitled "Night on Disco Mountain". That song was from the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack. There was scene in that film where Tony Manero (played by John Travolta) and the guys took a ride and danced around the Verrazano Bridge and gone crazy where the disco "Night on Bald Mountain" was played in the background. I have the soundtrack of "Saturday Night Fever" in my collection. The disco version of "Night on Bald Mountain" was the song that inspired "Fantasia". There was also on that soundtrack features Walter Murphy & the Big Apple Band doing the "Fifth of Beethoven", another disco version of "Beethoven's 5th Symphony". The original version was used during the first musical sequence in "Fantasia 2000". As anybody remembered that song?

 

[diegorivera2]

The disco version of "Night on Bald Mountain" was the song that inspired "Fantasia".

MR77,

'Night on Bald Mountain' was composed as a tone poem by Modeste Mussorgsky in 1867. He re-scored the original in 1872 for use as a chorus for the ballet 'Mlada'; he revived the piece later that decade for use in his opera, 'Sorchintsy Fair' which he did not finish due to his death.

Rimsky-Korsakov, one of Mussorgsky's friends edited the piece in 1868 and that is the version we usually hear performed by symphony orchestras today. Most of us first heard this piece not as Rimsky-Korsakov's edition but Leopold Stowkowski's: he heavily edited the score for Disney's 'Fantasia', released in 1940.

David Shire, as you mentioned, gave the piece a disco twist for the 1977 soundtrack 'Saturday Night Fever' but it was not this piece that inspired the one we hear in 'Fantasia'.

Some of our friends here might be interested to note the piece is also included in the video game 'Kingdom Hearts', which contains many songs in the Disney stable. Of even more arcane interest is the fact Chernabog, in Russian literature, was sometimes depicted as a black goat, not the towering creature we know and love.

Sources: http://www.musicweb-international.com/Prog...ussorg_bare.htm
http://www.nottinghamphilharmonic.co.uk/notes/MNBM.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/st-john-s-nig...m-for-orchestra

 

[X-S Tech]

To answer the first post a little more concisely than post #2 did- How could a 1970's Bald Mountain recording inspire a 1940's Fantasia?

 

[diegorivera2]

I am providing value as only a long-ago Humanities major could. I knew that lousy course in Russian composers would come in handy one day. In retrospect, I should have taken the course on 9th century Chinese composers because now I would know if fireworks were involved.

 

[diegorivera2]

Sounds like a conversation between these two. . .

 

[diegorivera2]

It might work now; if it's not visible then these words will paint the picture for you:

Don Knotts and Tim Conway.