128, is a composition in four parts for orchestra by Max Reger, based on four paintings by Arnold Böcklin, including Die Toteninsel (Isle of the Dead).
While tone poems were a common genre around 1900, including many works by Richard Strauss, Reger typically wrote more abstract music.
125, and the tone poems after Böcklin as "Ausflug in das Gebiet der Programmusik" (Excursion in the realm of program music).
Reger conducted the first performance in Essen on 12 October that year, with the Städtisches Orchester (municipal orchestra).
Klaus Uwe Ludwig wrote an arrangement of the movement for viola and organ, which was published by Breitkopf.
Like the painting, the music evokes the shimmering foam of surf in sunlight, and the play of naiads and Triton.
[2] A reviewer compares the movement to Debussy's La mer written a few years earlier, noting that "Reger pursued the flamboyant realm of mythical creatures".
A composition based on the painting by Andreas Hallén appeared in 1897, others followed, including a piece of the same title by Serge Rachmaninoff in 1909.