Tolstoy on Beethoven's "Kreutzer Sonata"

A terrible thing is that sonata, especially the presto! And a terrible thing is music in general. What is it? Why does it do what it does? They say that music stirs the soul. Stupidity! A lie! It acts, it acts frightfully (I speak for myself), but not in an ennobling way. It acts neither in an ennobling nor a debasing way, but in an irritating way. How shall I say it? Music makes me forget my real situation. It transports me into a state which is not my own. Under the influence of music I really seem to feel what I do not feel, to understand what I do not understand, to have powers which I cannot have. Music seems to me to act like yawning or laughter; I have no desire to sleep, but I yawn when I see others yawn; with no reason to laugh, I laugh when I hear others laugh. And music transports me immediately into the condition of soul in which he who wrote the music found himself at that time. I become confounded with his soul, and with him I pass from one condition to another. But why that? I know nothing about it? But he who wrote Beethoven’s ‘Kreutzer Sonata’ knew well why he found himself in a certain condition. That condition led him to certain actions, and for that reason to him had a meaning, but to me none, none whatever. And that is why music provokes an excitement which it does not bring to a conclusion. For instance, a military march is played; the soldier passes to the sound of this march, and the music is finished. A dance is played; I have finished dancing, and the music is finished. A mass is sung; I receive the sacrament, and again the music is finished. But any other music provokes an excitement, and this excitement is not accompanied by the thing that needs properly to be done, and that is why music is so dangerous, and sometimes acts so frightfully.

I saw this quote a few days ago. It is from a story by Tolstoy, The Kreutzer Sonata (I have not read it). Interesting, Platonic perspective.

In a way, the narrator here is correct. If we ourselves create a piece of music, it is entirely our own, but what of music which is created by someone completely different than us? Often times, I find myself taking on the emotions expressed in a song, even though I have never experienced them myself in their purest form. I have never been in love, but I still listen to love songs. Art represents the possibility. As Aristotle would say, art represents the universal through particulars. All humans have the capability to experience an event and react to it. For a moment, art can make all these possibilities into reality. It awakens emotions in us that we do not know we have. It extends our own reality to include that of all human existence.