Blog
Music to bewitch under the summer moon
July 2, 2018
The Cyprus Symphony Orchestra and the Cyprus Youth Symphony Orchestra will wrap up the musical season with three open-air evening concerts under the name Witches Dance next week.
Forty-five professional musicians will meet on stage with 30 young musicians under the baton of the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra Artistic Director and Chief Conductor, together with soloists Maria Petrou and Orestis Papatryphonos on violins. Audiences will be presented with images of the eternal battle between the forces of good and evil with Night on Bald Mountain by Modest Mussorgsky, Le Streghe (Witches Dance) for violin and orchestra, op. 8 by Niccolo Paganini and Symphonie Fantastique, H. 48 by Hector Berlioz under the summer moonlight.
Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain retells the legend of Bald Mountain near Kiev in Ukraine where all sorts of eerie phenomena gather to celebrate Witches’ Sabbath. Written between 1860 and 1866, it is Mussorgsky’s only orchestral work. The work was originally entitled St John’s Night on Bald Mountain but after the composer’s death Rimsky-Korsakov decided to produce a revised version and to remove the reference to St John from the title.