The Russian writer, philosopher and political thinker was born on September 9th 1828. Best known for his two novels War and Peace(1869) and Anna Karenina(1877), Tolstoy was a master of realistic fiction and is widely considered one of the greatest novelists of all time. But did you know that he was also a great lover of music with very specific likes and dislikes?

Tolstoy’s own musical ability is referred to in various memoirs. Nikolai Nikolaevich Gusev was the personal secretary to Tolstoy, author of several works on his life and works, and director of the Tolstoy Museum in Moscow from 1925 to 1931. Gusev states that Tolstoy was “a good musician and composer”.  Aleksandr Borisovich Goldenveizer was a professor of music at the Moscow conservatory, an accomplished pianist and a frequent visitor to Tolstoy’s home for the last 15 years of Tolstoy’s life. Goldenveizer notes that Tolstoy, as well as many members of his family, was musical by nature and that in his youth when he occupied himself for hours on the piano he even thought of becoming a musician. During this period Tolstoy composed a waltz for piano. Goldenveizer records how he and the composer Taneev wrote down the waltz when Tolstoy played it for them at Iasnaia Poliana in 1906.

Here are some other interesting facts about Tolstoy and his love of Classical Music:

Music had a very strong effect on Tolstoy.  He would go pale and often could not hold back tears in his eyes when hearing it. “For Tolstoy music was not an amusement but an important business in life

Tolstoy was always deeply interested in the question of what music was and what were the philosophical grounds of its inner existence. In the Kreutzer Sonata Tolstoy asks: What is music? What does it do? Why was it made?

In 1850 Tolstoy defined music as “a means to arouse through sound familiar feelings or to convey them”. In his diary he wrote that  “music is a stenograph of feelings”. In Tolstoy's conversations with Goldenveizer, he developed an analogy between music and dreams where there is a discrepancy between responses and their causes. This led him to the conclusion that “music does not cause states such as love, joy, sadness but summons them up in us”.

Tolstoy’s favourite composer was Chopin. He would often be moved to tears after hearing Chopin and once exclaimed “That is music”. When listening to Chopin Tolstoy experienced (in his own words) the feeling of “complete artistic satisfaction". Tolstoy particularly liked the preludes and mazurkas, and pieces full of energy like the polonaises and certain Chopin ballades.

Tolstoy also liked Mozart, Haydn and Weber. He had a particular liking for Don Giovanni. This is ironic considering Tolstoy did not particularly like opera and in fact considered it a false kind of art.

Tolstoy was NOT a fan of Schumann, although he did really like Carnival.

Tolstoy also showed an ambivalent attitude towards the music of Beethoven. I would call it complicated. Although he admired the composer and was captiviated by his music while he was listening to it, he spoke very badly of him and wrote that Beethoven began the decline of musical art .

Although Tolstoy was not very familiar with the operatic and symphonic works of Russian composers, Tchaikovsky’s Quartet No.1 did make a deep impression on him. While listening to the Andante for the first time, he broke down sobbing. As for other Russian composers, he liked the songs of Glinka, the piano music of Scriabin and some of Rachmaninov and Arensky.  Mussorgsky? Not so much. 

Composers that played for Tolstoy:

Russian composer Sergei Taneev visited Tolstoy several times over a number of years and played for him on many occasions, though Tolstoy did not much like his compositions.

Scriabin and Rachmaninov played for Tolstoy on single occasions. There was a also a visit from Rimsky-Korsakov.

In a letter Tolstoy wrote to Tchaikovsky, he called music the “highest art in the world”.  It played a significant role in Tolstoy’s life right to his death and, as Tolstoy himself acknowledged, spurred him on to artistic creation.

Happy Birthday Leo!!!!!!