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| | April 10, 11, 12 |
 | | He was apparently planning to turn this play – which is apparently lost – into an opera, for he called it a “libretto.” Yet when the work was finally written, it took the form of a symphonic poem, described by Mussorgsky in a letter to Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov on July 5,1867: |
 | | On the twenty-third of June, on the eve of St. John’s Day was finished, with God’s help, St. John’s Night on Bald Mountain – a musical picture with the following program: (1) assembly of the witches, their chatter and gossip; (2) cortege of Satan; (3) unholy glorification of Satan; and (4) witches’ sabbath. |
 | | The score was written directly in score without a draft – it was begun on the tenth day of June, and by the twenty-third there was joy and triumph. |
| www.clevelandorch.com /images/FTPImages/Performance/program_notes/041003.html (3419 words) |
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