| “ | The last number on our Fantasia program is a combination of two pieces of music so utterly different in construction and mood that they set each other off perfectly. The first is "Night on Bald Mountain" by one of Russia's greatest composers, Modest Mussorgsky. The second is Franz Schubert's world-famous "Ave Maria". Musically and dramatically, we have here a picture of the struggle between the profane and the sacred. Bald Mountain, according to tradition, is the gathering place of Satan and his followers. Here, on Walpurgis night, which is the equivalent of our own Halloween, the creatures of evil gather to worship their master. Under his spell, they dance furiously, until the coming of dawn and the sounds of Church bells send the infernal army slinking back into their abodes of darkness. And then, we hear the "Ave Maria", with its message of the triumph of hope and life, over the powers of despair and death. | ” |
— Deem's Taylor about the final Fantasia segment. | ||
Night on Bald Mountain is a Halloween segment from Disney's third animated feature Fantasia Based on the music by Modest Moussorgsky as conducted by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra, the segment was paired with Franz Schubert's Ave Maria as the film's final number.
Plot[]
The sequence takes place in a mountainous area, in which a village is overlooked by Bald Mountain. The peak of Bald Mountain is revealed to be Chernabog's wings, which he spreads out as he looks at the village down below. Stretching out his arms, Chernabog casts a dark shadow over the village and summons ghosts, including the spirits of hanged criminals (who pass through the noose a second time as they rise from their graves), fallen warriors in the moat and grounds of a ruined castle and the souls of all who are not buried in sacred ground. Chernabog's minions dancing. The ghosts join together to become a single mass, swirling around Chernabog, who laughs and summons fire and demons. As the demons emerge and gather below their master, he grabs a number of them and disdainfully throws them into the fires of Bald Mountain, while his other minions dance on. He then uses flames to create images: first, the flames resemble elegant dancers; then, at his pleasure, they transform into dancing barnyard animals. Chernabog then transforms them into blue demons, who dance before him, causing him to grin maliciously. As the dancing continues, it becomes more frantic and chaotic; harpies fly above the demons, occasionally grabbing them and throwing them into the inferno. The celebration culminates in a blinding flash of fire from the inferno. Chernabog, ready to continue, eagerly leers over his minions but is interrupted by the sound of bells, which herald the coming of the dawn. Though he initially ignores the sound, the light of the sun forces him and his minions to retreat; as the ghosts return to their resting places and the demons hide in the mountain, Chernabog raises his arms one final time and closes his wings, protecting himself from the sunlight and becoming the peak of the mountain once more.