Serguéi Rajmaninov · Romanticism
1909
Symphonic poem · Moscow
Tonality
No tonality indicated in the title. His five by eight compass evokes the balance of the oars of the Caronte boat.
From the atril
The island of the deadof 1909, it is inspired by the famous painting of the Swiss painter Arnold Böcklin, which shows a boat that approaches, on immobile waters, a rocky island covered in cypresses, with a figure dressed in white next to a coffin. Rajmaninov knew the picture through a black and white reproduction, and then said that, if he had seen the original in color before, he might not have written the work.
The work begins with an undulating rhythm in pairs of five by eight, irregular and obsessive, which evokes the movement of the oars and the balancing of the boat over the dark water. On that background, the music advances slowly, with a serious and bleak sonority. In the central part, a more passionate section emerges, which some interpret as the memory of life, before returning to the dark. The Gregorian Motion of Dies irae, the song of the deceased who obsessed Rajmaninov all his life, appears in a veiled way. It is a work of a hypnotic atmosphere, and one of the most original of its author.
What to hear
- The rhythm of five to eight of the oars.
- The passionate central section.
- The references to Dies irae.
