Tolstoy’s Waltz

The Anacrouse collection offers pianists, beginners and advanced alike, a wide choice of classical works from the Renaissance to the present day. It brings together major works of the repertoire as well as rarer pieces, and also offers transcriptions for piano solo or four hands, selected for their musical and educational interest. Each score, available individually, benefits from careful editorial work: a rigorously established musical text, clear and legible engraving, accompanied by a short biography of the composer and a note on the work.

The “Waltz in F major” favours atmosphere over virtuosity. Of pared-down elegance, it asks the pianist for particular attention to clarity of phrasing and suppleness of touch to convey all the charm of this salon narrative.

If the Anacrouse collection has chosen to publish this score, it is for its absolute uniqueness. The only known musical work by Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), this waltz was long considered a legend before being formally identified. The philosopher Isaiah Berlin mentioned its existence in a BBC broadcast, but it is thanks to the notation made by pianist Alexander Goldenweiser in 1906, during a unique performance by the writer himself at Yasnaya Polyana, that the score could be preserved. Hitherto absent from world catalogues and only available as an appendix in obscure Russian publications, Anacrouse today offers the most faithful transcription of this unique sonic fragment. To perform these pages is to bring back to life the testimony of a universal genius seizing his piano to express what words could not yet say.