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Rating: I am Pozdnyshev, the one to whom that critical episode happened to which you allude, the episode of having killed his wife.
Lev Tolstoy takes you on a train, in Russia, at the end of the 1800s. And a gentleman, sitting next to you, inserts himself into the middle of one of those trivial compartment conversations. And he reveals his story to you.
- They were playing Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata, - he continued. - Do you know the first "presto"? Do you know it? Uh! Uh! That sonata is a terrible thing. And precisely that part. And music, in general, is a terrible thing! What does it do? And how does it do what it does? They say that music acts in a way that elevates the soul: that's nonsense, it isn’t true. It acts, acts terribly, I'm speaking for myself, but not at all in a way that elevates the soul; it doesn’t act in a way that elevates or lowers the soul, but in a way that excites the soul. How can I tell you? Music forces me to forget myself, my true situation, it transports me to a new situation that is not mine. (...)
Because the one who wrote, for example, the Kreutzer Sonata, Beethoven, he knew well why he was in that state of mind: that state of mind led him to certain actions, and therefore, for him, that state of mind had a meaning, for me, it has none. And that is why music only excites, it doesn't conclude. (...)
Can we perhaps allow anyone to hypnotize one or many people and then do whatever they want with them? And, above all, that this hypnotizer is the first immoral person to appear? Otherwise, a terrible means remains in the hands of whoever comes along.
Take as an example this Kreutzer Sonata, the first "presto": can it be played in a salon, among low-cut ladies, this "presto"? Playing it and then applauding and then eating ice cream and talking about the latest gossip? These things should be played under certain important, significant circumstances and when certain important acts, conforming to this music, must be performed. Playing and doing what this music has predisposed us to do. Otherwise, the untimely and inappropriate evocation of a sentimental energy that cannot manifest itself in any way cannot but have a deleterious effect.
On me, at least, this piece had a tremendous effect: it was as if new feelings and new possibilities that I didn’t know until then were being uncovered within me. "Yes, that's how it is, all different from how I thought and lived before, this is how it is," as if a voice was saying in my soul. What these novelties that I had learned to know were, I couldn't realize, but the awareness of this new state was very joyous. All those people, and among them, my wife and he, appeared to me in an entirely different light. After this "presto," they still played the beautiful, but usual, and not new "andante" with its ordinary variations and the very weak "finale." Then they played again, at the request of the guests, both an elegy by Ernst and various other little pieces; all of this was beautiful, but all of this didn't evoke even a one hundredth of the impression that the first piece had evoked in me. All of this happened now against the backdrop of the impression that the first piece had evoked. I was carefree and cheerful all evening. And I had never seen my wife as she was that evening.
The purest talent in the history of music was named Ludwig Van Beethoven. He broke the strings and hammers of all the pianos he touched because he had no limits. And he broke souls.
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