The Kreutzer Sonata The Kreutzer Sonata The Kreutzer Sonata (, ) is a novella by Leo Tolstoy, named after Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata. The novella was published in 1889, and was promptly censored by the Russian authorities. The work is an argument for the ideal of sexual abstinence and an in-depth first-person description of jealous rage. The main character, Pozdnyshev, relates the events leading up to his killing his wife: in his analysis, the root causes for the deed were the "animal excesses" and "swinish connection" governing the relation between the sexes. During a train ride, Pozdnyshev overhears a conversation concerning marriage, divorce and
Leonid Kreutzer Leonid Kreutzer Leonid Kreutzer (13 March 1884 in St. Petersburg – 30 October 1953 in Tokyo) was a classical pianist. Kreutzer was born in St. Petersburg into a German Jewish family. He studied composition under Alexander Glazunov and piano under Anna Yesipova. He was a highly influential piano teacher at the Berlin Academy of Music (Berliner Hochschule für Musik), together with Egon Petri. Amongst Kreutzer's students were Władysław Szpilman, Hans-Erich Riebensahm, Vladimir Horbowski, Karl-Ulrich Schnabel, Franz Osborn, Boris Berlin, Ignace Strasfogel and Grete Sultan. Leonid Kreutzer also gave musically and technically demanding solo recitals, mostly dedicated to specific composers or