Between two times: With Sforzato to Prague
Prague, April 18, 2026.
Departure! – Dieser Frauenschuh beim Abschied; ich sah wohl, daß es ihm leichter wurde. Nicht aus Mangel an Gutwillen – er hat mich redlich aufgenommen –, doch ist mit mir kein ruhiges Wohnen! Es treibt mich fortwährend! & was in mir arbeitet, läßt sich nicht abstellen, auch nicht für den Nächsten. Wir sprachen wenig. Es war genug. Ein Gedanke formt sich: Der Mensch kann bei einem andern seyn und ist doch größtheils nur bey sich selbst. Daher wohl, daß ich nirgends lange verweile. So ging ich fort. – O Welt!
Vienna – this station: a labyrinth! Like a small child I get lost at the point of departure. Paths underground, stairs, signs that point to something else than they show! You are guided and yet lost in the process. And this extortion with the tickets! Huge sums for a bit of movement through the air!
It begins – the old journey rewritten into the new. Barely a beginning to notice, no actual departure; rather a sudden being drawn into the movement itself. No pulling, no holding anymore – everything is swallowed! Back then, in 1796, the path was still resistance; now it is abolished. And yet: The hearing is silent, but the body perceives! A continuous tremor, ongoing, without cease – a brutal fundamental tone, a mighty Sforzato, upon which everything else is ordered. It seems to me as if this is more immediate than any hearing! Racing images out there, barely grasped, already gone – as if time itself had lost its breath! I want to reach out into the forests, but the machine devours the landscape before the mind can grasp it.
The people around me, immersed in their small, pitiful affairs... My electric magic show - this flickering box - shows where I am. A point moves over a map - and this point is supposed to be me? A strange relationship! I see myself go before I go. Schiller! Kant! Man does not just receive the world - he sets it for himself! But is it set here - or just replaced? I do not see my place, I determine it for myself. And yet the determined is no longer the seen.
Lundenburg - the border! The Thaya for a moment. Hardly seen, yet a whole was present again. Nothing is lost that was once thought and felt in order. I remember 1796 - the hills, the water, the houses, as if standing over from another life. In Prague itself: the alleys of the Lesser Town, the proximity to the Vltava, the old stones. Prague was an early second home for me, where I found myself in motion again; where working seemed easier than elsewhere. Do the people there still have ears for my inner noise?
Before Brno the hills - gentle as ever. But the time is different! Everything now appears at once. Does the individual lose its right when everything is at once? Or does it only gain its determination in the whole through this? - A sudden jolt - darkness without transition! A sudden grave night, an underground dungeon without recognition. No becoming, just a reversal! Just now vastness, now narrowness without measure. But this too is part of the order if you think big enough. I need no ear to see this!
Towards Prague, light over the fields. The destination is shown to me before I see it. My place has never been so precisely determined. I arrive and take the question with me: If man sets the world for himself with such clarity - does he thereby come closer to it, or does he distance himself from it?
Today Prague - and at the same time my first self calls out to me from the past, impatient, searching, full of plans. He looks at me. I see him more clearly than myself! Where are we going now?
Ludwig van Beethoven
Tracing in Prague: Where Beethoven stayed in 1796
If Beethoven were to leave the premises of Prague's main train station today (Main station) leaves, he encounters a world that is completely foreign to him. Where in 1796 city walls and moats dominated the scene, he now stands amidst the glass transformation of the station area (Henning Larsen project). He finds it difficult to orient himself: The wide city highway (Magistrála) separates the station district from the historic old town like an insurmountable stream. But as soon as he crosses the Charles Bridge and reaches the Lesser Town (Malá Strana) he walks again in his time – this district remained largely untouched by the radical changes of the 19th and 20th centuries.
He could head to the following addresses, as they have remained almost unchanged at their core:
- House 'At the Golden Unicorn' (Lázeňská 285/11): He stayed here in 1796. The building still stands today almost as it did then, only now it proudly bears the name Palace Beethoven. The facade and the intimate courtyard still breathe the spirit of his era.
- House 'At the Three Violins' (Nerudova 12): On his way to the castle, he passed this house to have his violin repaired. The house sign with the three violins above the portal is an original from that time and would be a point of recognition for him.
- Lobkowitz Palace (Vlašská 19): As the seat of the German Embassy, this palace is one of the best-preserved Baroque ensembles in Prague. The magnificent rooms where Beethoven played for his patron are structurally identical to their condition in 1796.
- Clam-Gallas Palace (Husova 158/20): Located in the Old Town, this palace is one of the most splendid examples of High Baroque. After a comprehensive restoration (completed in 2022), Beethoven would immediately recognize the staircases and halls where he once sat at the piano – they appear almost 'newer' today than in his time.
Orientation guide for 2026: Beethoven finds his way best when he ignores the modern symbols on his 'flicker box' and orients himself by the church towers (especially St. Nicholas Church), which already guided him across the Vltava in 1796.
