Rachmaninoff: The Isle of the Dead

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)

The Isle of the Dead, Op.29


Arnold Böcklin’s painting (or rather paintings; he produced five versions of the image in all between 1880 and 1886) 'The Isle of the Dead' was in the early twentieth century an exceptionally popular artwork in central Europe. In his 1934 novel Despair Nabokov observes that prints of it were to be found “in every Berlin home.” The painting depicts a looming rocky islet in a vast expanse of water. Arriving at the shore is a boat steered by an oarsman, with a figure dressed in white standing in the boat accompanied by an object generally taken to be a coffin.


The title of the painting is not Böcklin’s own, but was coined by an art dealer from a phrase used by Böcklin in a letter to the commissioner of the painting, Alexander Günther. The oarsman is generally assumed to be Charon, in Greek mythology the guide who takes the dea across the River Styx to the Underworld.


Rachmaninoff encountered the painting in Paris in 1907, and was inspired by it to begin a new orchestral work, which he completed in Dresden in 1909. The image he saw in Paris was not any of the originals however, but a black-and -white print. Rachmaninoff later declared that had he seen it in colour he would probably not have composed the music.

Rachmaninoff was at this time at the height of his powers, having recently completed his Second Symphony, and The Isle if the Dead is one of his finest works. The gently rocking rhythm that opens and drives the music through much of its course invokes the pull of the oars in the water, over which fragments of the 'Dies Irae' plainchant that obsessed Rachmaninoff throughout his career float. These two element and a variety . A lighter central section perhaps suggests a reminiscence of the life the figure in the boat has departed, and the tension between this and the tolling of the 'Dies Irae' leads to a dramatic climax, before the boatman sets his oars to the water again, and the isle fades into the mist.