How music shaped Virginia Woolf’s writing Music provided the author with a vocabulary to imagine and describe her creative practice and formal innovations. 4 hours ago Virginia Woolf listened to a wide variety of music, including Russian ballet music which she heard when the Ballets Russes visited London in 1912. | George Charles Beresford, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Many of Virginia Woolf’s early reviewers noted parallels between her literary innovations and those of contemporary composers, such as Claude Debussy. Woolf’s interest in music was overlooked after her death. However, 80 years on, we are now beginning to explore how her extraordinary experimental uses of narrative perspective, repetition and variation derive from her close study of particular musical works and specific musical forms.