this passionate injustice. What does Tolstoy complain of in Beethoven? Of his power. He reminds us of Goethe; listening to the Symphony in C Minor, he is overwhelmed by it, and angrily turns upon the imperious master who subjects him against his will.[1]
“This music,” says Tolstoy, “transports me immediately into the state of mind which was the composer’s when he wrote it… Music ought to be a State matter, as in China. We ought not to let Tom, Dick, and Harry wield so frightful a hypnotic power… As for these things (the first Presto of the Sonata) one ought only to be allowed to play them under particular and important circumstances…”
Yet we see, after this revolt, how he surrenders to the power of Beethoven, and how this power is by his own admission a pure and ennobling force. On hearing the piece in question, Posdnicheff falls into an indefinable state of mind, which he cannot analyse, but of which the consciousness fills him with delight. “There is no longer room for jealousy.” The wife is not less transfigured. She has, while she plays, “a majestic severity of expression”; and “a faint smile, compassionate and happy, after she has finished.” What is there perverse in all this? This: that the spirit is
- ↑ Instance the scene described by M. Paul Boyer: “Tolstoy sat down to play Chopin. At the end of the fourth Ballade, his eyes filled with tears. ‘Ah, the animal!’ he cried. And suddenly he rose and went out.” (Le Temps, November 2, 1902.)
