The Kreutzer Sonata: Three degrees of separation

What links Tolstoy, Beethoven, a virtuoso violinist and a young, married Czech woman? The inspiration for the elderly Janacek's string quartetsOpera and leider com­posers have always drawn inspiration from literature. Instrumental music, meanwhile, often makes reference to natural phenomena – Beet­hoven's Pastoral Symphony and Debussy's La Mer – or tells a story, as in Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel and Smetana's autobiographical quartet, Aus Mei...

Read full article Share article