Webster

The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions." --American Statesman Daniel Webster (1782-1852)


Monday, April 27, 2020

Monday Music "Night on Disco Mountain" by David Shire


I am continuing to work on  the house for the past few days so I was unable to post, I had enough time to read my blogroll in the morning as I drank my coffee, before I started working on the house.
I have been enjoying the run of songs, I never had a theme last this long, and I am  really enjoying it in a weird sort of way,   I have several more weeks in mind, perhaps longer.  As long as I can flog er work the muse, I will,
     I am continuing my string of "bugaloo" songs.  This discussion was started in the "Monster Hunter Nation, Hunters Unite", back in December? it is a Facebook group with enthusiast of the ILOH "International Lord of Hate" A.K.A Larry Correia.  We were talking about what song would we use if we looked out of our window or glanced at our security camera and saw this.....


One of the alphabet bois lining up to take down your house...What would be your "Valhalla" song and you would set it up to play as you load up magazines and prepare yourself.
 I figured it would scar the alphabet boys if they come busting in and hearing a song that is related to Disco and Porn in the 1970's.  What can I say, My humor is warped....just a bit. Next week will be "Disco Inferno by the Trammps",  Now that should really cause some psych evals., hehehe, some poor ATF guy trying to explain the attraction to his mother because of Disco. and the possibility of inferno and Tannerite Rover :D

 David Lee Shire (born July 3, 1937) is an American songwriter and composer of stage musicals, film and television scores. The soundtracks to the 1976 film The Big Bus, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, The Conversation and All the President's Men, and parts of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack such as "Manhattan Skyline", are some of his best-known works. His other work includes the score of the 1985 film Return to Oz (the "sequel-in-part" of The Wizard of Oz), and the stage musical scores of Baby, Big, Closer Than Ever, and Starting Here, Starting Now. Shire is married to actress Didi Conn.
   David Shire arranged an orchestral disco adaptation for the 1977 motion picture Saturday Night Fever. The arrangement, titled "Night on Disco Mountain" appears on track 10 of the soundtrack album. Except for changes in phrasing and rhythm plus the addition of a disco drumbeat and "scratch" guitar, it is fairly true to Mussorgsky's original symphonic arrangement.



Night on Bald Mountain (Russian: Ночь на лысой горе, romanized: Noch′ na lysoy gore), also known as Night on the Bare Mountain, is a series of compositions by Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881). Inspired by Russian literary works and legend, Mussorgsky composed a "musical picture", St. John's Eve on Bald Mountain (Russian: Иванова ночь на лысой горе, romanized: Ivanova noch′ na lysoy gore) on the theme of a witches' sabbath occurring on St. John's Eve, which he completed on that very night, 23 June 1867. Together with Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov's Sadko (1867), it is one of the first tone poems by a Russian composer.
Although Mussorgsky was proud of his youthful effort, his mentor, Miliy Balakirev, refused to perform it. To salvage what he considered worthy material, Mussorgsky attempted to insert his Bald Mountain music, recast for vocal soloists, chorus, and orchestra, into two subsequent projects—the collaborative opera-ballet Mlada (1872), and the opera The Fair at Sorochyntsi (1880). However, Night on Bald Mountain was never performed in any form during Mussorgsky's lifetime.
In 1886, five years after Mussorgsky's death, Rimsky-Korsakov published an arrangement of the work, described as a "fantasy for orchestra." Some musical scholars consider this version to be an original composition of Rimsky-Korsakov, albeit one based on Mussorgsky's last version of the music, for The Fair at Sorochyntsi:
I need hardly remind the reader that the orchestral piece universally known as 'Mussorgsky's Night on the Bare Mountain' is an orchestral composition by Rimsky-Korsakov based on the later version of the Bare Mountain music which Mussorgsky prepared for Sorochintsy Fair.
— Gerald Abraham, musicologist and an authority on Mussorgsky, 1945
It is through Rimsky-Korsakov's version that Night on Bald Mountain achieved lasting fame. Premiering in Saint Petersburg in 1886, the work became a concert favourite. Half a century later, the work obtained perhaps its greatest exposure through the Walt Disney animated film Fantasia (1940), featuring an arrangement by Leopold Stokowski, based on Rimsky-Korsakov's version. Mussorgsky's tone poem was not published in its original form until 1968. Although still rarely performed, it has started to gain exposure and become familiar to modern audiences.
 
 
 
 

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