Although the work is usually titled as being in A major, the Austrian composer and music theoretician Gerhard Präsent has published articles indicating that the main key is in fact A minor. īeethoven gave no key designation to the work. The final movement of the work was originally written for another, earlier, sonata for violin and piano by Beethoven, the Sonata No. In the composer's 1803 sketchbook, the work was titled 'Sonata per il Pianoforte ed uno violino obligato in uno stile molto concertante come d’un concerto' (' Sonata for the piano and one obligatory violin in a highly concertante style like a concerto'). It is commonly known as the Kreutzer Sonata ( German: Kreutzer-Sonate) after the violinist Rodolphe Kreutzer, to whom it was ultimately dedicated, but who thoroughly disliked the piece and refused to play it. 47 in A major, by Ludwig van Beethoven, is an 1803 sonata for piano and violin notable for its technical difficulty, unusual length (around 40 minutes), and emotional scope. De Moor employs a sensory approach to the story her sensual style of writing enables the reader to hear, feel, smell and taste as they read, allowing The Kreutzer Sonata to become an intense experience.Title page of an original edition of the Kreutzer Sonata But can music really be divined and conferred with meaning? Is it not simply form? Significant in this respect is Van Vlooten’s blindness, which unmistakably intensifies his experience of music, but how apt are the words with which he communicates his feelings and how pure is his passion? Love, eroticism, jealousy and music all are impenetrable enigmas, even if you unravel the meaning of Janáceks string quartet, as the narrator ultimately intends to do. Van Vlooten cannot conceive that it is simply the act of making music that is making his wife happy, so he looks for alternative reasons. The critic becomes so jealous that he attempts to murder her. But all that changes when Van Vlooten begins to imagine that Suzanna is having an affair with the viola player in the quartet. The violinist returns his love they marry and are happy together for a long time. When the critic hears Suzanna play the violin part from Janáceks Kreutzer Sonata, he is entranced and falls in love with her.

In a plane on the way to a master class in Bordeaux, he meets a young musicologist–the narrator of the story–who introduces him to the violist, Suzanna Flier. The main character is Marius van Vlooten, a blind music critic who, following a disastrous youthful love affair, has never fallen in love again.

This theme provides the main story of de Moor’s book.

The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy