Mussorgsky’s A Night on Bald Mountain at the World’s Columbian Exposition

On April 28, 1890, President Benjamin Harrison signed an act of Congress awarding Chicago the honor of hosting a world’s fair to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World. Architects Daniel Burnham and John Wellborn Root were charged with oversight of the design and construction, but following Root’s unexpected death in January 1891, Burnham became the sole director of works. He engaged several other architects — including Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles Follen McKim and Louis Sullivan — to design a classical revival–themed city with grand boulevards, elaborate building façades, and lush gardens. Beaux Arts design concepts — based on symmetry, balance, and grace — were employed, and the 200 new, but intentionally temporary, buildings were mostly covered in plaster of Paris and painted a chalky white, giving the fairgrounds its nickname, the “White City.”

The fairgrounds stretched over nearly 700 acres in Jackson Park and officially opened to the public on May 1, 1893. Over the next six months, nearly 50 countries would exhibit and close to 28 million people would visit. Juicy Fruit chewing gum, Cream of Wheat, Quaker Oats, Shredded Wheat, Aunt Jemima pancake mix and the Ferris Wheel were introduced, along with the first U.S. Post Office–issued picture postcards and commemorative stamps and U.S. Mint–issued commemorative quarter and half-dollar coins. Following its blue ribbon–win as “America’s Best” at the exposition, the Pabst Brewing Company officially changed the name of its signature beer.

Soon after Theodore Thomas agreed to lead the new Chicago Orchestra, the exposition’s executive committee (many of whom were the same men who were helping to finance his new orchestra) offered him the job of director of music for the fair. Inspired by Burnham’s imagination and drive — not to mention that the committee was prepared to spend nearly one million dollars on music and two performance halls — Thomas accepted shortly after his new orchestra’s inaugural concerts on October 16 and 17, 1891, in the Auditorium Theatre.

Thomas laid out an extensive plan for all types of concerts and issued a proclamation in the spring of 1892 setting forth many lofty goals, among them “the hearty support of American musicians, amateurs, and societies, for participation on great festival occasions of popular music, and for the interpretation of the most advanced composition, American and foreign.” He made his new orchestra the foundation of the resident ensemble, the Exposition Orchestra, augmented to over one hundred players, and he invited the most important musicians in the world to participate: Johannes Brahms, Antonín Dvořák, Joseph Joachim, Piotr Tchaikovsky, Jules Massenet, Camille Saint-Saëns, Giuseppe Verdi, Pietro Mascagni, Charles Gounod, Anton Rubinstein and Hans Richter, among others.

Two music buildings were constructed for a combined cost of $230,000. Music Hall, designed by Charles Atwood, had two performance spaces, seating 600 and 2,000. Festival Hall, designed by Francis M. Whitehouse, had a stage that was reportedly larger than the entire Metropolitan Opera House and seated 4,000 with standing room for more than 2,000. Thomas led the Exposition Orchestra in the first concert in Music Hall on May 2, 1893, with Ignace Paderewski as piano soloist.

Between June 5 and August 12, Czech organist, composer and conductor Vojtěch Hlaváč, professor of music at the Imperial University in Saint Petersburg, Russia, was on the podium for nine concerts, leading a variety of works including the Orchestra’s first performances of Glinka’s Overture to Ruslan and Ludmilla, Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture and, on June 8, the U.S. premiere of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s orchestration of Modest Mussorgsky’s A Night on the Blocksberg (now commonly known as A Night on Bald Mountain).

On June 19, Hlaváč — along with his daughter, contralto Zoe Hlaváč — gave a recital that, according to the Chicago Tribune, gave “promise of being of more than usual interest.” Hlaváč demonstrated two of his inventions: “the ‘Armonipiano Caldera,’ with tone-sustaining attachment [to] the grand piano, and upon a great concert harmonium of two claviers, eight and one-half sets of reeds, thirty-one registers, four knee-stops, [and] percussion tone-sustaining attachment.”

Of all the musicians Thomas invited to participate in the fair, very few actually made the journey to Chicago, most prominently Antonín Dvořák, who was then the director of New York’s National Conservatory of Music in America. August 12 was designated as Bohemian Day, and according to the Chicago Tribune, “Bohemia ruled the World’s Columbian Exposition yesterday. It was the special date set apart for that nationality, and its citizens invaded the White City at every entrance by the thousands.”

A three-mile-long parade through downtown Chicago ended at the fairgrounds, where more than 8,000 people packed into Festival Hall. Dvořák and Hlaváč shared the podium, leading the Orchestra’s first performances of Smetana’s Overture to The Bartered Bride and Dvořák’s own Eighth Symphony (then known as his Fourth).

Hlaváč’s appearance “was the signal for loud applause” as he led the United Bohemian Singers of Chicago in the Bohemian Chorale and the Star-Spangled Banner. “As the voices of the singers began to swell the strains of the latter song, the audience broke into a mighty roar of applause. . . . As Dvořák walked out upon the stage a storm of applause greeted him. For nearly two minutes the old composer [age fifty-one!] stood beside the music rack, baton in hand, bowing his acknowledgements. The players dropped their instruments to join in the welcome. Symphony no. 4 in G major, considered a severe test of technical writing as well as playing, was interpreted brilliantly. The Orchestra caught the spirit and magnetism of the distinguished leader. The audience sat as if spell-bound. Tremendous outbursts of applause were given.” 

This article also appears here and portions previously appeared here.