Do you know Beethoven’s ‹Immortal Beloved›? Beethoven dedicated all his music from a certain point in time to an ‹immortal lover›. To this day people are divided as to who she may have been, and the way in which people are pondering about it says everything about this power of Eros, which is also an artistic power. One ponders in such a way that one asks: Is this a real person?
The Countess was probably the immortal mistress. It was a boy, a nephew of his. I maintain that it can be everyone at the same time. Here the boy, there the countess and maybe three or four other countesses and also an imaginary character: The ‹human being›. The person who [Beethoven] at some point in their life, at some point in their sensitive years, once had in front of them and who has never died out in them. This human being is present in our consciousness vicariously embodied by a certain person. At some point, we met someone through whom this primordial human suddenly confronted us embodied… A certain face, which one has encountered at some point, becomes the embodiment of the human being par excellence. And this is who you address creatively in life.
From Henning Koehler, Eros als Qualität des Verstehens (Eros as a quality of understanding). Wangen 2010.
Image Sofia Lismont – Translation: Monika Werner
