After Ludwig van Beethoven’s loss of life on March 26, 1827, his someday secretary Anton Schindler and two shut associates combed via the composer’s final condo, attempting to find some financial institution bonds he had bequeathed to his nephew. They discovered greater than that they had bargained for. In a small drawer, they found the Heiligenstadt Testomony, wherein Beethoven had described his devastating battle with deafness in 1802; and with it, an apparently unsent love letter, addressed solely to a girl he phrases his ‘Immortal Beloved’.
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Who Was Beethoven’s ‘Immortal Beloved’?
In Beethoven’s unsent love letter to his ‘Immortal Beloved’ he wrote:
My angel, my all, my very own self —
only some phrases immediately, and people in pencil (with yours) …
Can our love persist besides via sacrifice, via not demanding all the pieces? Can you alter the very fact that you’re not completely mine, I not completely yours? Oh, God, gaze on the beauties of Nature and put together your thoughts for the inevitable. Love calls for all the pieces and rightly so, and thus it’s for me with you, for you with me …
…Whereas nonetheless in mattress my ideas rush to you, my Immortal Beloved, generally joyfully, different occasions sadly, ready to see whether or not Destiny will hearken to us. I can solely dwell with you both fully, or in no way. Sure, I’ve determined to wander far and extensive till I can fly into your arms and name myself completely at residence with you, and ship my soul enveloped by yours into the realm of spirits — sure, regrettably it should be so. You’ll get well extra simply as you realize I’m trustworthy to you; by no means can one other personal my coronary heart, by no means — by no means! O God, why should one go away anyone one loves a lot? …
…Be calm — solely via calm consideration of our existence can we obtain our purpose of dwelling collectively — be affected person — love me — immediately — yesterday. You — my love — my all — farewell — oh go on loving me – by no means doubt probably the most trustworthy coronary heart of the one you love
L
Ever thine.
Ever mine.
Ever us.
So effectively did Beethoven shield the id of his Immortal Beloved that musicologists spent round 200 years looking for out who she was. It’s nonetheless disputed immediately.
One thing else very important was lacking from the letter: a date. Beethoven wrote on it solely ‘July 6’. No 12 months. By way of matching days of the week with the date, attainable years had been narrowed right down to a shortlist and watermark identification lastly settled upon 1812. From that flowed a number of prospects of Beethoven’s Immortal Beloved.
Antonie Brentano, née Birkenstock
Antonie Brentano, née Birkenstock, Viennese by start, had married Franz Brentano, a businessman from Frankfurt, and had 5 youngsters. The household got here again to Vienna to look after her father in his final sickness and after that to type out his property, which centred on a effective artwork assortment. Whereas there, in 1810, they grew to become acquainted with Beethoven; Franz swiftly grew to become his buddy and patron. Antonie’s grief had overwhelmed her and was what appears to have been a power despair. Beethoven tried to assist her by enjoying to her for hours at a time.
The American musicologist Maynard Solomon’s biography of Beethoven introduced the Antonie Brentano principle a lot credence. She was the one candidate confirmed to have been within the related space of Bohemia on the related evening. Furthermore, eight months later, on March 8, 1813, she gave start to a son, who later grew to become mentally and bodily disabled. The scholar Susan Lund has superior the idea that Beethoven suffered a lot anguish at separation from this little one to whom he might by no means be a father, and probably wrote the Missa Solemnis for him.
However Antonie’s husband and kids had been along with her, and Beethoven truly stayed with them en famille within the Bohemian spa cities of Karlsbad and Franzensbad that August, shortly after that letter was written. Because the biographer Jan Swafford places it, “It is hard to believe that Beethoven could have thought of breaking up Antonie’s family, of taking on five children, of dealing such a blow to a man he liked and respected.” He devoted some essential works to Antonie, together with the Diabelli Variations Op. 120 – however this tells us little past the truth that the Brentanos had been associates and patrons of his.
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Bettina Brentano
Bettina Brentano, Franz’s precocious half-sister, met Beethoven in 1810 when she was 20 years previous. She was a effective author and labored along with her different half-brother Clemens and the poet Achim von Arnim on the gathering of folksongs Das Knaben Wunderhorn. A energetic and nearly too imaginative persona, she actually flirted with Beethoven, who was not averse to this and referred to as her by the acquainted ‘du’, which he hardly ever utilized in correspondence with any girl. However, she quickly married von Arnim, and by July 1812, she was fortunately settled and had lately given start to her first little one.
Countess Julie, nicknamed ‘Giulietta’, Guicciardi
Countess Julie, nicknamed ‘Giulietta’, Guicciardi got here to Vienna from Trieste along with her dad and mom in 1800 and have become a pupil of Beethoven’s. He appears to have been briefly infatuated along with her, and he or she with him; however after all, she was compelled to marry inside the aristocracy. Anton Schindler’s 1840 biography of the composer urged that the Immortal Beloved letter was written for her.
Beethoven’s dedication to Julie of the Sonata In C sharp minor Op. 27 No. 2, the ‘Moonlight’, nonetheless most likely had much less to do with an emotional connection than with the truth that her household owned among the finest pianos in Vienna and Beethoven was eager to check out some uncommon results on this piece (the late Dr Rita Steblin revealed this in an interesting educational article). In the meantime, Beethoven’s dialog books supplied a startling anecdote that urged she had as soon as, after her marriage, thrown herself at him – a suggestion the high-principled composer rejected in horror. Primarily, we are able to rule her out.
Countess Therese Brunsvik von Korompa
Countess Therese Brunsvik von Korompa, typically often called Therese von Brunsvik. Julie Guicciardi was first cousin to the Hungarian Brunsvik siblings; it was they who met Beethoven first. They first got here into his life in 1799, when their mom introduced her two eldest daughters from Hungary to Vienna for a couple of weeks to review with him.
Therese was a effective pianist, extremely smart and fluent in 5 languages. After her father’s loss of life, she took a vow by no means to marry. She additionally had a slight curvature of the backbone. In her forties, she adopted her vocation into educating and in the end based the Hungarian kindergarten system. She was thought by some to be an ideal religious associate to a religious composer. The 2 had been actually shut associates for a few years and Beethoven devoted his Piano Sonata In F sharp, Op 78 to her. However Beethoven’s Immortal Beloved letter shouldn’t be notably religious: it’s the intimate writing of a person knocked sideways by the surprising bodily consummation of the love of his life.
Therese’s former pupil Marie Hrussoczky, as “Mariam Tenger”, wrote a memoir describing the aged Therese’s supposed account of her secret engagement to Beethoven. However did Therese have one thing to cover? Likewise, her brother, Franz, a detailed confidante and correspondent of Beethoven’s? It’s attainable that Schindler’s identification of Julie Guicciardi as Beethoven’s Immortal Beloved began with Franz’s enter. As a result of there was one other Brunsvik …
Countess Josephine Brunsvik von Korompa
Countess Josephine Brunsvik von Korompa, Therese and Franz’s youthful sister, caught Beethoven’s eye at these first Vienna piano classes in 1799, when she was 20 years previous. Days later, she met Depend Joseph Deym and married him inside weeks. Deym was a waxworks artist, had opened his personal museum, and had made Mozart’s loss of life masks. He was greater than twice Josephine’s age. After that they had produced 4 youngsters in 5 years, he died of pneumonia. Battling to look after the household, handle the museum and face unsuspected money owed, Josephine suffered a nervous collapse.
Beethoven now, in 1804, set a couple of super courtship of the widowed Josephine. In 1957, 13 love letters he had written to her had been revealed for the primary time, proving a revelation. Their impassioned language shouldn’t be dissimilar to that of the Immortal Beloved letter (he typically calls her “my angel”, for example). The delicate Josephine had problem dealing with this depth. Ultimately, she reduce him from her life: if she married a commoner, she would lose custody of her noble-born youngsters.
In 1810 Josephine married her sons’ tutor, Baron Christoph von Stackelberg. She needed to: he had seduced her and he or she fell pregnant out of wedlock. The pair had been ill-suited, and a disaster occurred in 1812, when their money owed spiraled uncontrolled: within the wake of Austria’s defeat by Napoleon, the Austrian foreign money had been devalued to a fifth of its former price. A number of of Beethoven’s princely patrons had been additionally ruined. Her marriage on the rocks, Josephine expressed the intention of going to Prague to seek the advice of doubtless advisors there, probably together with the Emperor himself. Beethoven, in the meantime, was en path to the spa of Teplitz on medical recommendation and stopped in Prague to see to a few of his monetary backers, since their monetary loss was additionally his.
There is no such thing as a definitive proof that Josephine was there; nor of how or the place she and Beethoven might need run into one another. But the circumstantial proof is powerful. She supposed to go; he canceled a gathering for that night resulting from surprising circumstances; and Josephine scarcely thought-about herself nonetheless married. 9 months later, on April 9, 1813, she gave start to a daughter who she named Minona. (Maybe there was certainly a toddler over whom Beethoven suffered the anguish of separation.)
Minona von Stackelberg was the one one in all Josephine’s youngsters who lived into her eighties. Images of her show a detectable likeness to Beethoven. She by no means married, however made her dwelling as a companion in an aristocratic household – and as a instructor of music. An opera has simply been written about her life, by the Estonian composer Jüri Reinvere, premiered in Regensburg in January 2020.
For Josephine and Beethoven, the scenario was unimaginable
For Josephine and Beethoven, the scenario was unimaginable. Beethoven wished to be along with her wholly or in no way, however Stackelberg – though he had mainly moved again to Estonia – would by no means launch her. When Minona was about 18 months previous, he introduced police to the home in Vienna and forcibly kidnapped his two daughters and Minona.
A 12 months or so later, Josephine had an affair with one other tutor she had engaged for her sons. This, too, resulted in a being pregnant (the tutor took the infant away to lift her, however she died aged two). But Josephine does appear to have maintained some contact with Beethoven; it seems that they met in Baden in 1816, the place Beethoven’s nephew – whom the composer was preventing to undertake – seen his uncle strolling arm in arm with a mysterious girl. Therese, too, would have served as a go-between.
Josephine died of consumption in 1821, aged 42. Her story was lengthy under-recognized, for advanced causes; not least, her household would understandably have wished to keep away from a scandal. In the present day, nonetheless, she is taken into account nearly actually “the one”; this principle is now accepted by the Beethovenhaus in Bonn.
A recurring motif mirrors the rhythm of Josephine’s identify
However does any of this have an effect on the music? It’s attainable. The musicologist Marie-Elisabeth Tellenbach, in her e book Beethoven And His Immortal Beloved, practically 40 years in the past recognized a recurring motif in Beethoven’s music mirrors the rhythm of Josephine’s identify. It seems in quite a few guises all the best way from the music ‘Andenken’ and the ‘Andante favori’ (which Beethoven gave to Josephine as “your – your – Andante”) to the E Flat Piano Sonata Op. 31 No. 3, the String Quartet In F minor Op. 95, the music cycle An Die Ferne Geliebte, the three late piano sonatas, Opp 109, 110 and 111 – and the checklist might proceed.
Did this motif begin as a sign from him to her, then develop till Beethoven was successfully immortalizing his beloved? Ultimately, we are able to solely hear and ponder.
Jessica Duchen’s novel Immortal, revealed in October 2020, reveals the epic love story behind Beethoven’s ‘Immortal Beloved’ letter. “Beautifully crafted and painstakingly researched, Immortal offers a winning blend of historical rigor and free-wheeling imagination,” famous BBC Music Journal.
Really useful Recording
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