Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria is the seventh and final segment of Fantasia, following the medley containing compositions of the same name by Modest Mussorgsky and Franz Schubert. Deems Taylor introduces it as the conflict between the profane (represented by Night on Bald Mountain) and the sacred (represented by Ave Maria).
At Walpurgis Night (the Witches' Sabbath), Chernabog, God of evil, emerges from the peak of Bald Mountain (in reality Mount Triglaf, near Kyiv in Ukraine) to summon all of his minions, including ghosts, vultures, demons, hags, and harpies, who dance furiously as he throws them into the mountain's fiery pit. He is driven away by the light of the dawn, and a procession of figures walks up a hill to witness the sunrise. It is perhaps the most famous sequence in Fantasia, if not, second to The Sorcerer's Apprentice. It showcases the animation of Vladimir Tytla and the style of Kay Nielsen, as well as the longest shot ever produced in the multi-plane camera (in the procession).
Plot[]
The segment takes place in a mountainous area, in which a village is overlooked by Bald Mountain. The peak is revealed to be Chernabog's wings, which he spreads out as he looks at the village down below. Stretching out his arms, he 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 him, 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 on his right palm: first, the flames resemble three elegant dancers with long flowing hair; then, at his pleasure, they transform into dancing barnyard animals. Chernabog then transforms them into blue lizard-like demons who crawl on his hand and then become crushed. When he opens it, the flames become blue demons with horns and tails 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 church bells, which herald the coming of the dawn. Though he initially ignores it, the sunlight 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.
The sunrise
- “...we hear the "Ave Maria" with its message of the triumph of hope and life over the powers of despair and death.”
- ―Deems Taylor[src]
A long line of figures (monks, pilgrims, or nuns), each bearing a source of golden light, gradually comes into view in the land in front of the village. The silhouettes proceed up a shallow-sloping hill, among natural forms that resemble the architecture of a cathedral (trees are tall and completely vertical, resembling columns, and branches cross together to form gothic arches), the predawn sky filled with color by the coming sunrise. The camera continues ahead of these figures and reaches a serene horizon, where the sun slowly rises to a crescendo. The film then ends immediately, without any disclaimer (however, the 1990 version as well as the 1991 UK VHS release features end credits following the end of the segment).
Ave Maria Lyrics[]
Ave Maria! Heaven's bride!
The bells ring out in solemn praise
For you, the anguish and the pride,
The living glory of our nights —
Of our nights and days.
The Prince of Peace your arms embrace,
While hosts of darkness fade and cower.
Oh, save us, Mother full of grace,
In life and in our dying hour!
Ave Maria!
Production[]
An inspirational sketch by Kay Nielsen establishing the look and style of Night on Bald Mountain.
The idea for Night on Bald Mountain's Devil was conceived by German artist Heinrich Kley (who, though he did not work at the Disney studio, inspired many of the Disney artists, and whose drawings were collected by Walt Disney), who once sketched a pen and ink drawing of a gigantic demon forcing workers out of a factory by blocking the chimney. Albert Hurter, inspired by this drawing and others like it by Kley, drew various sketches of a huge, winged devil tossing handfuls of souls into a volcano. Hurter's sketches also included studies of Chernabog's hands as his flailing minions attempt to clamber onto his fingers for safety; this imagery is used in a shot in the final film. After Hurter's initial sketches, Kay Nielsen established the final appearance of Chernabog and his world in a series of detailed pastel illustrations, as well as a model sheet for the character.[1] Chernabog was then created as a real model, to be used as reference by Tytla during animation.[2]
Despite the limited animation, the Ave Maria segment proved to be one of the biggest challenges on the film as the result of the massive scale of its procession scene and the deep use of multiplane camera work for the final scene. The sequence had to be shot three times in order to achieve the final sequence as a result of an incorrect lens being used the first time and an earthquake causing the camera to shake the second time. The third and final version was completed with only a day before the film's premiere in New York.
Credits[]
- Musical score:
- Modest Mussorgsky – Night on Bald Mountain
- Franz Schubert – Ave Maria (Ellens dritter Gesang)
- Directed by Wilfred Jackson
- Story development: Campbell Grant, Arthur Heinemann, and Phil Dike
- Art direction: Kay Nielsen, Terrell Stapp, Charles Payzant, and Thor Putnam
- Background painting: Merle Cox, Ray Lockrem, Robert Storms, and W. Richard Anthony
- Special English lyrics for Ave Maria by Rachel Field
- Choral director: Charles Henderson
- Chorus: Westminster Choir of Westminster Choir College
- Operatic solo: Julietta Novis
- Animation supervision: Vladimir Tytla
- Animation: John McManus, William N. Shull, Robert W. Carlson, Jr., Lester Novros, and Don Patterson
- Special animation effects: Joshua Meador, Miles E. Pike, John F. Reed, and Daniel MacManus
- Special camera effects: Gail Papineau and Leonard Pickley
Other Appearances[]
Kingdom Hearts[]
- "A Night on the Bare Mountain" serves as the boss theme for Chernabog in the End of the World.
Wander Over Yonder[]
- This song made a cameo in the Wander Over Yonder episode "The Big Day" when Lord Hater was selecting mood music before attempting to destroy Wander and Sylvia.
Videos[]
Trivia[]
- This segment has an equivalent in Fantasia 2000, The Firebird Suite, as they both feature demonic beings reeking chaos, and good ultimately overcoming their doings.
- The song "Night on Bald Mountain" was used in the PlayStation Vita edition of LittleBigPlanet. In addition, some Disney characters, like The Incredibles became DLC costumes for LittleBigPlanet.
- Ave Maria is the only segment in the film with lyrics. The preceding compositions are instrumental.
- Night on Bald Mountain appears in Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two as one of the projector screen levels, in two versions.
- Walpurgis Night, when Chernabog awakens, takes place between April 30 and May 1; it is literally the evening before the feast-day of Saint Walburga, an eighth-century English missionary to Germany. According to German legend, the witches held their grand Sabbat on this night. The German Walpurgisnacht is generally better known than the Russian St. John's Eve.
- The piece's original Russian title was Иванова ночь на лысой горе (Ivanova noch′ na lysoy gore) or "St. John's Eve on the Bare Mountain"; Modest Mussorgsky intended his "night" to be the Kupala Night, or St. John the Baptist's Eve: this sets the sequence in the night between June 23 and 24. Coincidentally, he finished composing this piece that same night.
- In his notes to the piece, Mussorgsky identified the "Bald Mountain" of the title as "Mount Triglav, near Kiev"; however, there is not currently any mountain of that name in Ukraine. The name "Triglav" ("the three-headed") was the name of an ancient Slavic deity, and seems to have been used for three-peaked mountains in general, but the only mountain with that specific name is found in Slovenia, though there is a Mount Troglav in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
- Mussorgsky refers to his devil (in various sources) as Чёрнобог (Chernobog [sic], "The Black God"), Чёрному козлу (Chernomy kozlu, "The Black Goat"), and Сатана (Satana, "Satan").
- Ironically, both these festivities are associated with fertility and return of life, which is diametrically opposite to the theme of Disney's sequence.
- The music of "Night on Bald Mountain" was featured in a Reese's Peanut butter cup Halloween commercial From 2012 through 2018.
- In Richard Williams' film, The Thief and the Cobbler, there is a scene that spoofs this segment, with the Thief making similar poses to Chernabog.
- Leopold Stokowski conducted the Rimsky-Korsakov arrangement of "Night on Bald Mountain" in Fantasia's original release, while in 1982, Irwin Kostal used Mussorgsky's own more savage orchestration during his conduction of the digital recording. Ironically, the music was never fully performed during Mussorgsky's life.
Gallery[]
References[]
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