Post from 2026: Beethoven's Digital Dispatch to Countess Josephine de Clary

To Countess Josephine de Clary

I don't know how to make it clear to you - but I am writing from a future called the year 2026. I live again, against my will. Some adventurous minds have brought me back to thinking through a strange artwork; they call it "Smartphone" or "Tablet" - but I call it a "digital pen". It feels as if I am writing with an invisible stylus on a glass wall, which is not paper and yet holds marks. What devilry!

They say this writing remains eternally visible in invisible light; but to me, it seems to lack breath. A sound needs air and the heart - this thing does not. They call it progress, I call it silence without soul.

And now I am to travel again - to Prague, as in the spring of 1796! You see, even fate plays variations on my own life. I am not happy about it; it is a strange pain to have to walk the same path twice, knowing what once happened and what was lost. Back then I knew the world, and Prince Lichnowsky accompanied me. But now everything is foreign to me, although I have been curious to understand since January. But what should I look for in Prague, if people know my name, but know nothing about how I amstands as dead Newborn?

Today one travels from Vienna to Prague in four hours - what a sheer spell! Your name came to mind: your face, your play, your laughter between the beats - everything arose as if time itself would resurrect your form from the tones. I remember how you stood amidst society and yet did not belong; how you listened as if your ear did not hear outward, but inward. I have seen a rarity in you - a woman for whom the tone was not ornament or pastime, but confession. What othersplayed to kill boredom, you did to awaken the soul. That is why I wanted to guide your hand; that is why I wrote to you - not with words, but in tones.

Letters! – The world asks for letters to you, Josephine, as if the dead scribble of ink could ever say what we negotiated between the beats in the Prague salons. A letter is for the world, for the post riders and the curious; but my music was for you. I still see you in the Golden Unicorn, how you forced the mandolin with that firmness that one would hardly have trusted this delicate instrument. There was no need for 'Highly esteemed' and no 'Most humble'. When I threw the phrases for the mandolin to you or tore the 'Ah Perfido' from the spirit, that was my correspondence. It is a foolish desire of people to hold everything in words that only sound can express.

It’s absurd! – Often I thought of putting pen to paper, but what should I have written? That the etiquette of the salons feels like a burden on my chest? That I curse Prince Lichnowsky when he parades me around like a curious animal? No! – In art, there are no barons and countesses; there are only saints who understand each other – or not. And yet, as much as I sometimes despise nobility, I admire that nobility of spirit that I found in your playing. A foolish heart that feels so!

Lichnowsky may have thought he was introducing me to society; he did not realize that I was only looking for my accomplices there. You, Josephine, were one such. The chords I dedicated to you are my seal on our acquaintance. A letter yellows, it is torn or forgotten; but a sforzato that I set for you burns for eternity. Whoever reads my notes to you reads my heart more clearly than any pen on post paper could.

Keep written words away from me when the spirit can speak in tones! The word is transient, but the tone is immortal like the soul itself. In this strange time, when I write with an invisible pen, I still feel the same desire as before: to live in tone, not in writing. If this is to be my new life, then I want to compose again with the first trip to Prague – not for the world, but for you, Josephine.

L. v. Beethoven

Editor's note:

Ludwig van Beethoven stayed in Prague from February to April 1796 during his first major trip with Prince Karl Lichnowsky. During this time, he was introduced to the local aristocratic salon society and met the then-nineteen-year-old Countess Josephine de Clary (1777–1864). She was an excellent mandolin player and was among the musically educated women of the Prague nobility.

For Josephine, Beethoven composed several works for mandolin and piano (Adagio WoO 43b, Andante con variazioni WoO 44b, Sonatine WoO 44a, and Andante WoO 44b) and probably the dramatic cantata 'Ah Perfido' (Op. 65). This aria was created in 1796 in Prague with possibly first sketches in Vienna, and was handed over to the Italian singer Josepha Duschek, with whom Beethoven was also in contact.

Whether the Countess was the first interpreter is not documented, but contemporary reports and the dedication circumstances suggest a close connection to Josephine de Clary. 'Ah Perfido' combines Italian virtuosity with psychological drama and is considered an important precursor to Beethoven's later oratorio tradition. In this encounter, there was no social bond, but a spiritual one – Beethoven recognized in Josephine the 'nobility of spirit,' which inspired him beyond the barriers of class and convention.

Sources:

- Beethoven-Haus Bonn – Commentary on 'Ah Perfido', Op. 65
- Beethoven-Haus Bonn – Digital Work Directory (Mandolin Works WoO 43–44) 
- Barry Cooper, Beethoven, Oxford University Press (2000), pp. 69–73 – Trip 1796 and Connections to Prague
- Lewis Lockwood, Beethoven: The Music and the Life, Norton (2003), pp. 95–99.
- Christine Siegert (Ed.), Beethoven from Prague 1796 – Accompanying Publication to the Exhibition Beethoven-Haus Bonn, 2017.