Mussorgsky's (1839-81) Night on Bald Mountain was actually titled St. John's Night on the Bare Mountain. St. John's Night, or St. John's Eve, is the night before the Feast of St. John which happens to fall around the summer solstice. Eastern Europeans have long celebrated it with a mixture of pagan trick-or-treat traditions and religious observances and bonfires. The history of the music is as tortured as Mussorgsky's own life. The first version appeared in 1867 and was revised around 1872. He revised it again in 1880 and hoped to include it in the opera Sorochintsy Fair. In this last version he added a hauntingly beautiful quiet ending in which a church bell announces the dawn and the chases away of the evil sprites. 

After the composer's death, Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) took it upon himself to "improve" all of Mussorgsky's work (poor Mussorgsky!). He used this last version for his re-orchestration. Night on Bald Mountain has remained an audience favorite ever since its appearance in Walt Disney's landmark movie, Fantasia.