Isle of the Dead

there are many songs I have loved and love, but Rachmaninov's Isle of the Dead, together with his arrangement of the Bach gavotte posted below have a special meaning in my life. (a 3rd might be moskowski's juggler)

unlike other Rachmaninov pieces, they lack the grandiose Romantic melody, which climaxes and dies in a moment. they are not stories or journeys. neither are they "etudes-tableaux," or paintings of a feeling or emotion.

rather, they convey a present, yet eternal state-of-being, so to speak. it is not a feeling "of the minute", but a color of life, a color of existence.