David Shire ~ Night On Disco Mountain 1977 Disco Purrfection Version

Happy Sunday! I had a habit of listening to classical music on Sunday mornings and fell out of it for a bit, but this AM I put on "La Traviata" with Victoria de Los Angeles recorded in 1956. It was a favorite of my Dad's and I can just about croak out every now. I mention this because I found something classical but disco straight from the soundtrack of "Saturday Night Fever".

Full of menace and foreboding, it was appropriately used on the bridge scene where they guys display their physical prowess and it conveyed danger and suspense in the drama. David Shire updated Mussorgsky's "Night On Bald Mountain" to great effect.

Modest Mussorgsky was a Russian composer who helped define a distinct national style of classical music. A jewel of orchestration, it was known as "Night On Bare/Bald Mountain" but Mussorgsky never recorded it in his lifetime. The music became popular with the Rimsky-Korsakov's version that the song achieved lasting fame. Premiering in Saint Petersburg in 1886, the work became a concert favourite.

Disco never met a genre it did not like and this energetic classical music took well to the disco beat. "Night On Disco Mountain" was written for a pivotal scene in "Saturday Night Fever" when the boys stop the car on the bridge and begin taunting Donna with their acrobatics. Then they make it look like they all fall to their deaths when Donna runs to the edge and looks over to see the three are just fine.