Night on Bald Mountain Baron Georgiy Mengden, a military friend of the composer. In 1860 Mussorgsky informed Balakirev that he had been commissioned to write one act of an opera on this subject: However, as with the previous project, it is unknown whether any materials were written down, and, if so, whether they were transferred to subsequent projects. Rimsky-Korsakov declares in his memoirs ("Chronicle of My Musical Life") that in the early 1860s Mussorgsky, under the influence of Franz Liszt's "Totentanz", had written a version of the "Bald Mountain" music for piano and orchestra. However, it is believed that Mussorgsky did not hear Liszt's
Night on Bald Mountain is also the most literal. The adjective "bald" is commonly used in English place names for barren hills, mountains, and other features, and so is also idiomatic. However, because the most familiar use of "bald" describes hairlessness, this part of the title is also known as "Bare Mountain". The use of "bald" to describe barren landscapes is common in European languages. In French, the piece is known as ' and in Italian ' ("A Night on Bald Mountain"). Some performances of the work also insert the article "the" before "Bald Mountain" or "Bare Mountain". Articles are not used in Russian,