Counter to the common scholarly dismissal of Sergei Rachmaninov’s music as unsophisticated kitsch, a new interpretation of his symphonic poem Isle of the Dead—contextualized by the myth of Orpheus and psychoanalytic theory—reveals it to be a subversive psychological drama. The affinity between musical modernity and the Orpheus myth is well established, and the Orphic role of re-enchanting the world was particularly potent in late imperial Russia. Post-revolution, Rachmaninov can be understood as a Russian Orpheus figure whose music adopts an ethic of mourning, exemplified in Isle of the Dead. The 1909 symphonic poem, inspired by a reproduction of Arnold Böcklin’s painting, is best understood as using a rotational form, with three musical ideas recycled through four broad rotations. The first idea is the river ostinato, perhaps evoking Charon’s oar in the river Styx. The second idea is the borrowed Dies irae motive. The third idea is a languishing chromatic gesture. The Dies irae motive serves as the germinal idea for the telos of the piece. At the center of the of the piece is a lyrical B section that can be understood through Adorno’s concept of Durchbruch, a epiphanic moment of interruption and reversal. Mapped onto the Orpheus myth, this section is Orpheus’s rescue of Euridice. Following this section, the menacing Dies irae erupts once more in the final apotheosis of the motive. In psychoanalytic terms, the piece moves from desire to drive with the inciting fantasy (the Durchbruch section) appearing late and forcing a rehearing of the music. It also synthesizes the psychoanalytic insight that the apparently vain efforts of grief are in fact the agents of subjective catharsis.

Works: Rachmaninov: Isle of the Dead (199-209)

Sources: Attributed to Thomas of Celano: Dies irae (199-209)

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet