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March 13, 2008
the kreutzer sonata
People say that music has an uplifting effect on the soul: what rot! It isn’t true. It’s true that it has an effect, it has a terrible effect on me, at any rate, but it has nothing to do with any uplifting of the soul. Its effect on the soul is neither uplifting nor degrading – it merely irritates me. How can I put it? Music makes me forget myself, my true condition, it carries me off into another state of being, one that isn’t my own: under the influence of music I have the illusion of feeling things I don’t really feel, of understanding things I don’t understand, being able to do things I’m not able to do. I explain this by the circumstance that the effect produced by music is similar to that produced by yawning or laughter: I may not be sleepy, but I yawn if I see someone else yawning; I may have no reason for laughing, but I laugh if I see someone else laughing.
Music carries me instantly and directly into the state of consciousness that was experienced by its composer. My soul merges with his, and together with him I’m transport from one state of consciousness into another; yet why this should be, I’ve no idea. I mean, take the man who wrote the “Kreutzer Sonata”, Beethoven: he knew why he was in that state of mind. It was the state of mind which led him to perform certain actions, and so it acquired a special significance for him, but none whatever for me. And that’s why that kind of music’s just an irritant – because it doesn’t lead anywhere. A military band plays a march, say: the soldiers march in step, and the music’s done its work. An orchestra plays a dance tune, I dance, and the music’s done its work. A Mass is sung, I take communion, and once again the music’s done its work. But that other kind of music’s just an irritation, and excitement, and the action the excitement’s supposed to lead to simply isn’t there! That’s why it’s such a fearful thing, why it sometimes has such a horrible effect. In china, music’s an affair of state. And that’s the way it ought to be. Can it really be allowable for anyone who feels like it to hypnotize another person, or many other persons, and then do what he likes with them? Particularly if the hypnotist is just the first unscrupulous individual who happens to come along?
Yet this fearful medium is available to anyone who cares to make use of it. Take that “Kreutzer Sonata”, for example, take its first movement, the presto: can one really allow it to be played in a drawing-room full of women in low-cut dresses? To be played, and then followed by a little light applause, and the eating of ice-cream, and talk about the latest society gossip? Such pieces should only be played on certain special, solemn, significant occasions when certain solemn actions have to be performed, actions that correspond to the nature of the music. It should be played, and as it’s played those actions which it’s inspired with its significance should be performed. Otherwise the generation of all that feeling and energy, which are quite inappropriate to either the place or the occasion, and which aren’t allowed any outlet, can’t have anything but a harmful effect.
Tolstoy - The Kreutzer Sonata
Posted by amin at March 13, 2008 10:32 AM