His orchestration is balls. All this piece is annoying. He knew jackshit about orchestration. He just puts a lot of notes (I mean, a lot, and by a lot I mean a whole hell of a lot... a fuckload of unnecessary notes and ludicrous harmonic harmonies) and most of them we can never listen with all the other mumble jumble happening. This work is pretentious as fuck, and boring to tears. It's 20 minutes of nothing. I've been listening to this fuckheap for 20 years and I still haven't learned to enjoy it. Fuck it, I'll go back to Siegfried Wagner.

LOkk for instance at the details in the writing od cellos.

ok lets give this some careful consideration. Rachmaninoff writes thick textured music anyway, why should this piece be any different? There are no unnecessary notes here as rachmaninoff needs to bring in texture variation while still staying in his traditional style. All these notes that seem like either doublings or useless mainly appear serve to alter texture. On to actual orchestration. Rachmaninoff knew his colour palette well, choosing to mute the strings for the opening. This creates a fuzzy unclear sound to it which helps the introduction of brass notes to properly cut through the sound and introduce new harmonies. Strings also stay relatively low, helping the blending of instruments such as the contra which can often be hard to fit in due to its contrast (of sheer lowness) and also allowing woodwind instruments which would not normally be heard, be heard. Next, harmonies. If you don't like rachmaninoffs harmonies that's fine but they do have clear direction usually linked to gesture. Consider the title of the piece, 'Isle of the Dead'. This is a TONE POEM which for someone who doesn't know is where an image or story is depicted in music. The theme of death and despair is made prevalent by more uncomfortable harmonies which makes the half resolutions and resolutions all the more satisfying. I won't argue with you saying it is boring, I'm sure I find some music you like boring, i don't mind this point. Instead lets look at pretentious. I'm sorry but I don't know how this is pretentious. I'm guessing you are referring to all the notes you consider unnecessary to be extraneous and therefore pretentious. '20 minutes of nothing'. This piece has a clear subject, counter subject, development second subject and obvious resolutions. It is 20 minutes of music, whether you like it or not. Closer analysis of the instruments as suggested by gerard reveal what rachmaninoff knew about orchestration. He knows well to stick to fairly traditional orchestration in that brass have long notes, wind have runs and strings fill in. And this takes me on to my final question. Do you have a clear grasp of orchestration? ORCHESTRATION is not HARMONY. orchestration is about which ideas go where to best emphasise the idea presented. Harmony is about what notes are used to make the orchestration work. Time for some deconstruction of what the piece is trying to tell us in this '20 minutes of nothing'. The description tells us this 'The music begins by suggesting the sound of the oars as they meet the waters on the way to the Isle of the Dead. The slowly heaving and sinking music could also be interpreted as waves. Rachmaninoff uses a recurring figure in 5/8 time to depict what may be the rowing of the oarsman or the movement of the water, and as in several other of his works, quotes the Dies Irae plainchant, an allusion to death. In contrast to the theme of death, the 5/8 time also depicts breathing, creating a holistic reflection on how life and death are intertwined.' So how would YOU represent the sea in music. The sea is not uniform and perfect, the sea is uneven, rough and unbending to our will. The way rachmaninoff saw fit to demonstrate this is through his dissonant harmonies (carefully considered by the way, romantic composers didn't write these clashes in lightly. consider debussy, and apply the same thought to rachmaninoff) and the 5/8 signature to demonstrate this unevenness. Wagner was an amazing orchestrator that could not be doubted in my view but please please PLEASE open your mind a little about why notes are placed, what things represent and have consideration for how there is no such thing as wrong or rubbish music/orchestration. Just music/orchestration you do not like. i doubt you read any of that though have a nice day everyone :D

Excellent analysis, dear friend.

@Odisseu de Ítaca What you just demonstrated here is at best Joseph II-tier musical proficiency.

The 'incomplete' Dies Irae (only the first four notes) is repeated rather frequently at 15:15.

15:55

Try 75 years of age. This piece has a magnetic hold on me now.

Here you go: primanota.ru/raxmaninov-sergei/ostrov-mertvyx-simfonicheskaya-poema-k-kartine-beklina-dlya-orkestra-sheets.htm

@Mahadevan Seetharaman Oh how silly of me... I didn't know that. Thank you!

​@Mahadevan Seetharaman Thanks! That was eye-widening. I know Bach took "BACH" as the motif and composed an entire piece on it. Shostakovich also did something similar IIRC...

@@zixiliu1711 Yeah exactly - for Shostakovich it's DSCH (the "H" being b natural). It's his initials in the German transliteration of his Name (Dmitri Schostakowitsch; D. Sch.). :) I totally get the B/Bb/H confusion, I'm German and it took me some time to get :D

It's German for B-flat, silly.