Mount Pelee (or "Bald Mountain") is a dormant volcano on the northern tip of the island of Martinique in the Lesser Antilles island arc of the Caribbean Sea. It is among the deadliest stratovolcanos on Earth, with its volcanic cone composed of layers of volcanic ash and hardened lava. Mount Pelee is famous for its extremely destructive eruption in 1902 and the devastation that resulted, now called by many the worst volcanic disaster of the 20th century. It is one of the most active volcanoes in the West Indies. Night on Bald Mountain is a composition by Modest Mussorgsky that exists in at least two versions — a seldom performed 1867 version or a later (1886) and very popular 'fantasy for orchestra' arranged by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, A Night on the Bare Mountain (Ночь на лысой горе, Noch' na lysoy gore), based on the vocal score of the "Dream Vision of the Peasant Lad" (1880) from The Fair at Sorochyntsi with some revisions, most notably the omission of the choir.[citation needed] There is also a version orchestrated by twentieth-century conductor Leopold Stokowski; this is the version used in the now-classic 1940 Walt Disney animated film Fantasia. Inspired by Russian literary works and legend, Mussorgsky made a witches' sabbath the theme of the original tone poem, completed on 23 June 1867 (St. John's Eve). St. John's Night on the Bare Mountain and Rimsky-Korsakov's 'musical picture' Sadko (also composed in 1867) share the distinction of being the first tone poems by Russian composers. As with so much of Mussorgsky's music, the work had a tortuous compositional history and was arranged after his death in 1881 by his friend and fellow member of the The Mighty Handful Rimsky-Korsakov. It was never performed in any form during Mussorgsky's lifetime. The Rimsky-Korsakov edition premiered in 1886, and has become a concert favorite. Note on the title: The Russian word "лысая" (lïsaya) literally means "bald", but is used in this case figuratively for a mountain supposedly barren of trees. Therefore, many experts officially title the piece A Night on the Bare Mountain, even if they commonly refer to it as Night on Bald Mountain.
Bald Mountain can be accessed at River Run on the south and Warm Springs on the north. During the winter, finely appointed day lodges, a total of 13 lifts and 65 varied runs await on either side of the mountain. Bald Mountain's seemingly endless runs stretch 2,054 acres to the edges of the Sawtooth National Forest and slide another 3,400 vertical feet, top to bottom. During the summer, the world famous mountain is open to sightseers and adventurers, whether you want a relaxing day among the wildflowers, or a challenging journey through the rugged beauty of Idaho's wilderness. Baldy, as it is affectionately called, offers nearly 28 miles of hiking and biking trails. Feel free to tackle the trails yourself, or take along one of our expert guides to point out all the little things that make the Bald Mountain experience so unique. The River Run area of Bald Mountain is full of slopes covering all ranges of abilities. The most difficult runs, Olympic and Exhibition, are countered by an easier Olympic Ridge and Olympic Lane. From the top, intermediate skiers can choose Cutoff or Blue Grouse to Mid River Run to get back to the River Run Lift. From there it is a nine-minute lift ride back to the top. Advanced skiers can tackle the Rock Garden, Exhibition or Upper Holiday runs for moguls galore. Warm Springs, named for the warm bubbling water at the base of the lift, is a great area of the mountain for the intermediate skier who needs a little more time to move on to the advanced stage. Filled with more difficult runs, Warm Springs glows in the afternoon sunshine. The top of the area is home to Warm Springs Face and most difficult runs International and Limelight. Halfway down, skiers can decide which of the more difficult runs they want to venture on ranging from Brick's Island to Cozy.
The first re-modelling of the work took place in 1872, when Mussorgsky revised and recast it for chorus and orchestra as part of Act III that he was assigned to contribute to the collaborative opera-ballet Mlada. In this new version the music was to form the basis of the Night on Mt. Triglav (Russian: Ночь на горе Триглав, Noch' na gore Triglav) scene. Mussorgsky referred to this piece under the title Glorification of Chornobog in a list of his compositions given to Stasov.[9] Mlada was a project doomed to failure, however, and this 'second version' languished along with the first. Unfinished Opera: The Fair at Sorochyntsi (1880) The work's 'third version', the Dream Vision of the Peasant Lad (Russian: Сонное видение паробка, Sonnoye videniye parobka), came into existence eight years later when the composer revived and revised the second version (see Night on Mount Triglav above) to function as a 'dream intermezzo' in his opera The Fair at Sorochyntsi (1874–80), a work which was still incomplete at the time of his death in 1881. Mussorgsky originally chose the end of Act I of the opera as the location for his choral intermezzo. It is now generally performed in the Shebalin version (1930) of the opera, where it is more logically relocated to Act III, just after the peasant lad's dumka. The theme of the dumka also serves as one of the main themes of the new quiet ending in this version (which also finds its way into the Rimsky-Korsakov edition), thus forming a musical frame to the intermezzo. Rimsky-Korsakov declares in his memoirs (Chronicle of My Musical Life) that in the early 1860s Mussorgsky had written a version of the Night on Bald Mountain music for piano and orchestra, under the influence of Liszt's Totentanz. However, it is believed that Mussorgsky did not hear Liszt's work until 1866, by which time he was planning the orchestral tone poem St. John's Night on the Bare Mountain (see below). No trace of a work for piano and orchestra has survived outside Rimsky-Korsakov's recollections, so it is assumed that the score was lost, or, more likely, that it had never existed.
