Immortal Beloved

The Immortal Beloved (German "Unsterbliche Geliebte") is the addressee[a] of a love letter which composer Ludwig van Beethoven wrote on 6 or 7 July 1812 in Teplitz (then in the Austrian Empire, now in the Czech Republic).

That Josephine could have been the unknown woman was subsequently suggested by analyses of similarities in wordings and phrases between earlier letters (from 1804 to 1809) and this mysterious one from 1812, mainly in the monographs by Massin (1967, 1970), Goldschmidt (1980) and Tellenbach (1983), p. 103ff):[13] In his 1840 biography of Beethoven, Schindler named Julie ("Giulietta") Guicciardi as the "Immortal Beloved".

"[22] La Mara (1920), after discovering more letters and notes in the Brunsvik estates, was now convinced "that ... Josephine widowed Countess Deym was Beethoven's 'Immortal Beloved'".

[24] Kaznelson arrived at his conclusion even though Hans Conrad Bodmer [de] in Zurich, owner of the "13 Letters" after World War II (see following), would not allow him access to them.

[30] Goldschmidt explains why the German Beethoven scholarship was so reluctant to accept Kaznelson's theory (already published before these "13 letters"): "The fact that, as a result of this meeting, they had to take a natural daughter into account, appeared so venturesome to the professional world that the resistance to the Josephine hypothesis stiffened noticeably.

"[31][32] Schmidt-Görg (1957) believed that with the last letter (which he still thought to have been written in 1807—not 1809) and with Josephine's marriage to Baron Stackelberg (in 1810) the love relationship was terminated.

[33] Ley (1957) saw it differently: "Only on the negative side has one been able to arrive at certain conclusions: neither Giulietta Guicciardi, nor Amalie Sebald, nor Bettina Brentano can be considered any longer, and not even Therese Brunsvik, who for a long time was seriously regarded as the recipient of the famous love letter.

But curiously enough, it is precisely the same documents which shed a definitive light, in the negative sense, on Therese which bear witness to Beethoven's passionate love for her sister Josephine.

[50] His hypothesis was founded on two major assumptions (or prerequisites): ad 1: Antonie arrived in Prague on 3 July 1812 after an arduous journey with husband, child and servant (and was registered there); she left at dawn the following morning: "Where did she have time that night for a tryst with Beethoven?

"[58] Solomon (1998), p. 229 quotes as supporting his case the song "An die Geliebte" [To the Beloved] WoO 140, an autograph of which contains in Antonie's handwriting the remark: "Requested by me from the author on 2 March 1812.

"[n] The background to this: "In November 1811, we see Beethoven writing a newly composed song with the heading 'An die Geliebte' [To the Beloved] into the album of the Bavarian Court singer Regina Lang.

"[59] Solomon's hypothesis was contested by Goldschmidt (1980), Tellenbach (1983, 1987, 1988, 1993–1994, 1998), Beahrs (1972, 1986, 1988, 1993), Dahlhaus (1991), Pichler (1994), Altman (1996), Meredith (2000), Steblin,[60] Walden,[61] Caeyers [de; nl],[62] and Swafford (2014).

"[65] Altman (1996) "demonstrates, as indeed Tellenbach has done, that much of the basis for the claims of Antonie's supporters consists of distortions, suppositions, opinions, and even plain inaccuracies.

"[69] Beahrs supported Josephine: "Was there for him in fact ... one deep and lasting passion for a certain dear one, marriage to whom was precluded, not by psychological inhibitions of the inner man, but by prohibitive heart-breaking externals?

... Where is any evidence whatsoever of true romantic love for even such dear ones as Marie Erdödy or Dorothea von Ertmann, Therese Malfatti or Antonie Brentano?

There is one, however, and only one, to whom Beethoven did pour his heart out in impassioned declarations of undying love remarkably similar to the phraseology of the anguished letter to his Immortal Beloved... That one is his 'Beloved and Only J' – Josephine.

She was a happily married wife and mother... her candidacy, which includes the improbable scenario of a 'ménage à trois' in Karlsbad, makes no psychological sense.

[75] Meredith, reviewing the history of the debate so far, deplores the fact that French and German authors (like Massin & Massin and – until then – Goldschmidt) were never translated into English, thus depriving especially the US-based Beethoven scholarship of the most valuable resources in this field of study: "Unfortunately, several of the most important and controversial studies about the Immortal Beloved have never appeared in English translation, which has substantially restricted their impact.

Canadian composer James K. Wright wrote a song cycle for baritone (or mezzo-soprano) and piano trio titled Briefe an die unsterbliche Geliebte/Letters to the Immortal Beloved (2012).

The Juno award-winning Gryphon Trio recorded the work with both Canadian mezzo-soprano Julie Nesrallah (New York: Naxos, 2015) and Luxembourg baritone David John Pike (Montreal: Analekta, 2019).