The Isle of the Dead in A Minor

Arnold Böcklin’s painting Die Toteninsel (The Isle of the Dead), of which he made several versions starting with that of 1880, haunted the imagination of many fin de siècle artists. In somber hues, it depicts a rocky island beneath a brooding sky on a still, dark sea; and in the foreground, a boat bearing a shrouded figure. Rachmaninoff saw it in Paris in 1907; not the original painting but a photograph, whose black and white tints only accentuated its ominous mood. It stayed with him, and in the spring of 1909 he composed his own response to Böcklin’s image, the symphonic poem The Isle of the Dead. A quiet, rocking rhythm suggests oars, and the Dies Irae funeral plainchant drifts through the orchestra like mist. As the isle looms ever closer, the music grows massive and menacing: and then passionate; with a lyrical, ardent melody that Rachmaninoff called a “theme of life.” Hope surges, struggles, then crashes and fades as the music resumes its voyage across the lifeless sea.