Rachmaninov: The Isle of the Dead

Rite of Passage?

Beyond the Score Rachmaninov composed his tone poem The Isle of the Dead in 1909, while living in self-imposed exile in Dresden. He was inspired by an engraved version of a famous painting by the Swiss symbolist Arnold Böcklin, depicting a mythical island honeycombed with ancient tombs. A mysterious boat rows toward the island, bearing a coffin withthe body of an unknown man. The composer creates an epic barcarolle of mourning, an imagined vision of impending death and a lamentation for the life that every human soul must leave behind. Inspired by orchestras in Germany, whose rehearsals he spent many hours observing, he developed in this music a new palette of orchestral sound and texture—deeply sensuous, mysteriousand suggestive.

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