Immortal Beloved

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The addressee of a famous letter that Ludwig van Beethoven wrote on June 6th / 7th is called the Immortal Beloved . July 1812 in Teplitz wrote. Their identity is still controversial in the professional world. The letter came from the composer's estate into the possession of his secretary Anton Schindler . After his death, his sister Marie Egloff, née. Schindler, later it came into the possession of the manufacturer August Nowotny, who ran a porcelain factory in Altrohlau near Karlsbad . Nowotny finally handed over his collection to today's Berlin State Library in 1880 . The letter is there under the signature Mus. ep. autogr. Beethoven 127 kept. The text is written in pencil and consists of three parts.

External clues

Teplitz, Pension Zur golden Sonne , where Beethoven was on 6./7. July 1812 lived. Probably here he wrote the letter to the immortal beloved, photo (2014)

Date and location for the sender and recipient

Beethoven did not completely date the letter; the year and the location are missing. For these reasons, it was extremely difficult to determine the addressee for a long time. The only clues were Beethoven's statement “Mondays on July 6th” and his remark “I have to go to sleep as a bathing person”, after which he was in a health resort. In the following years in question, July 6th fell on a Monday: 1795, 1801, 1807, 1812 and 1818. Beethoven also mentions that he wanted to have the letter transported to “K.” by stagecoach. On the basis of his remarks about the postal traffic to there, Max Unger concluded that Beethoven was staying in the Bohemian spa town of Teplitz and that the letter should be sent via Karlsbad . This suggests that the letter was written in July 1812, when Beethoven was actually on the cure in Teplitz. The “terrible, fundamental overland route” that Beethoven mentions in his letter and which, according to his statements, not only caused the vehicle to get stuck with him on a forest path, but also with “ Esterhazi ... on the other common way here” , got Unger to use the weather from the beginning of July 1812. In doing so, he discovered that Goethe , who was in Karlsbad at the same time, had almost exclusively noted rainy weather in his diary. The dating to the year 1812 was thus supported by further evidence. A watermark analysis of the letter paper by Joseph Schmidt-Görg in the 1950s brought final certainty , which showed that Beethoven used paper of the same type for some other letters in the summer of 1812 - but neither before nor after.

Presumed meeting in Prague

In addition, the letter reveals that Beethoven had apparently met his lover shortly before, most likely in Prague , where he came from Vienna from July 1st to 3rd before traveling to Teplitz on July 4th. In Prague, among other things, he had an appointment with Karl August Varnhagen von Ense for the evening of July 3rd - a meeting that did not take place, however, because on July 14th Beethoven wrote to Varnhagen von Teplitz: “I was sorry, dear V. Not being able to spend the last evening in Prague with them, I found it indecent myself, but a circumstance that I could not see beforehand prevented me from doing it ”. It is generally assumed that it was the apparently unforeseen encounter with the "Immortal Beloved" that prevented the meeting with Varnhagen.

Beethoven's Teplice apartments

Beethoven initially lived in Teplitz in the house at the golden sun at Badeplatz No. 72, corner of Schlossplatz. On July 7th, he moved into a room in the Zur Eiche building at Langen Gasse 62, the main street in Teplitz. The move is also evidenced by Beethoven's letter, in which he writes at the beginning: “My apartment will not be sure until tomorrow”.

The Karlovy Vary health resort lists and police reports

It is generally assumed that Beethoven wanted to send the letter to the "Immortal Beloved" to "K.", ie Karlsbad, so that the spa lists and registration protocols there are an important source for determining the addressee. Today they are kept in the Státní okresní archiv (State Regional Archives) in Karlovy Vary. Regarding the strictly regulated registration procedure, a Carlsbad travel guide from 1812 states:

“In the first few hours immediately after arrival, every national and foreigner has to fill out a printed notification slip that the landlord is responsible for showing him. The same rubrics are: 1. First name and surname of the visitor, his relatives and servants. 2. character. 3. Place of birth and country. 4. Place of previous stay. 5. Intention of the trip. 6. With what opportunity he came. 7. How many weeks or days does he intend to be here? 8. Has paid the statutory visitor's tax (bathing fee) because he is staying here for more than 8 days, with - 9. Naming of the passport or certificate. 10. Travel from here to - with the exception of the servants brought along, every spa guest of both sexes, if one stays here for more than 8 days, also for children, if they are 13 years old or adults, 4 florins WW under the designation visitor's tax to the Hauswirth to pay, who then has to give it to the town hall along with the passport. [...] The passports remain with the Polizey-Direkzion against a receipt until the day of departure. "

It was therefore hardly possible to stay incognito in Karlsbad. Even those who only stayed briefly in the city did not have to pay any visitor's tax, but in any case they had to deposit their passport with the police until they left. On the basis of a presumption by the Czech researcher Bohumil Plevka, Harry Goldschmidt had believed that “short stays were not registered”, but could not prove this. The cited travel guide, which Plevka and Goldschmidt did not know, suggests that the police regulations did not allow any exceptions of this kind. That simplifies today's research, because everything speaks for the fact that the name of the stranger can be found in the police registration protocols of that time. In 1812 it was the Karlovy Vary police superintendent Adalbert Grass who watched over the guests and events in the city. Grass also reported to his superiors about the charity concert that Beethoven - who traveled from Teplitz to Karlsbad around July 27th - gave in Karlsbad on August 6th.

The relevance of the police sources was recognized relatively late. They were first used in the 1960s by the New York researcher George Marek, then in 1972 by the Beethoven specialist Maynard Solomon, who also lives in New York .

Some researchers think it is conceivable that the letter should be sent beyond Karlsbad to a place further away, possibly to Franzensbad.

Candidates (selection)

In 1977 Harry Goldschmidt published a fundamental book called To the Immortal Beloved. An inventory in which he subjected all candidates from Beethoven's circle to an extensive examination, after which only two women remained. Both were married and the mothers of several children: Josephine Stackelberg geb. Brunswick was widowed by Deym and Antonie Brentano , the sister-in-law of Clemens Brentano and Bettina von Arnim . Goldschmidt argued that the “internal” circumstances apply better to Josephine, although it cannot be proven that she was traveling to Prague and Karlsbad at the time in question, whereas both apply to Antonie Brentano. The dispute over the question of which of these two women was the unknown has taken on the features of a religious war in the professional world.

In the course of more than a hundred and fifty years of research into the unknown, the following women in Beethoven's life were put up for discussion as candidates in chronological order:

Julie ("Giulietta") Guicciardi

Beethoven's letter was first published in 1840 by Beethoven's longtime adlatus Anton Schindler , who found it in the composer's estate, in his Beethoven biography. Schindler, who did not know the date of the letter, named the young Countess Giulietta Guicciardi as the addressee - a speculation that was questioned by her cousin Therese Brunsvik immediately after its publication. After reading the Schindler biography on November 12, 1840, she noted in her diary: “Three letters from Beethoven supposedly to Giulietta. Should it be works? "On January 15, 1847 she noted:" 3 letters to Giulietta, they will probably be to Josephine whom he loved passionately. "Josephine Brunsvik was Thereses Brunsvik's sister. The main argument against Giulietta Guicciardi is that Beethoven only had contact with her around 1801/02, whereas she lived with her husband in Naples from 1803 to 1822 and apparently no longer had contact with Beethoven.

Therese Brunsvik

Another candidate was Therese Brunsvik , for whom the renowned Beethoven researcher Alexander Wheelock Thayer advocated, albeit on the erroneous assumption that the letter was written in 1807. In addition, Tenger published a fictional diary by Therese Brunsvik in 1890, which seemed to support Thayer's assumption, but was soon exposed as a forgery. Excerpts from the real memoirs Therese published almost 20 years later for the first time La Mara , which initially interpreted the enthusiasm for Beethoven expressed therein as a sign of secret love. La Mara later corrected her view when she evaluated letters and documents from the Brunsvik estate that became accessible after the First World War. From these documents it emerged that Therese Brunsvik's sister Josephine had been in close contact with Beethoven during her widowhood between 1804 and 1807, which, however, evidently caused great concern among Josephine's sisters Therese and Charlotte. From these (still very incomplete) sources, La Mara drew the first conclusion, also dating the letter to 1807: “I was convinced that [...] Josephine widowed Countess Deym, Beethoven's 'Immortal Beloved' [... ] be."

Amalie Sebald

The first important contribution to the discussion about the addressee was made in 1910 by Wolfgang Alexander Thomas-San-Galli , who proposed that the letter was addressed to the Berlin singer Amalie Sebald . In the summer months of 1811 and 1812, she had a brief, intensive acquaintance with Beethoven in the Bohemian baths, who, as traditional letters and tickets show, had taken on all the traits of a strong flirtation at least in 1811. Although Thomas-San-Galli's thesis is no longer discussed today, through his solid research - for example on dating - he created foundations on which later researchers could build.

Josephine Brunsvik

The French writer Romain Rolland , who, like La Mara, had initially opted for Therese Brunsvik in 1928, also noticed Josephine's strong affection for Beethoven when the Brunsvik family temporarily gave him insight into Therese's diary notes, which were then unpublished. In 1954 Siegmund Kaznelson provided a number of other weighty arguments in favor of Josephine Brunsvik as the "Immortal Beloved" (from 1799 Countess Josephine Deym von Stritetz, married to Christoph Baron von Stackelberg in second marriage since 1810): He not only evaluated Therese's diary, which had been published by Czeke in 1938, but rather considered it possible that Josephine's seventh child, the daughter Minona von Stackelberg (April 8, 1813, Vienna - February 27, 1897, Vienna), who lived exactly nine months after meeting the “ Immortal Beloved ”(July 3, 1812), possibly Beethoven's child. Kaznelson saw decisive support for this thesis in the fact that the marriage between Josephine and Stackelberg was largely broken at the time in question: Baron Stackelberg had obviously left his wife and family a few weeks earlier.

Kaznelson's theses were first taken up a year later by the French historian couple Jean and Brigitte Massin, who honored the Josephine hypothesis in detail in their Beethoven compendium and described it as the "least absurd".

In 1957 the Beethovenhaus in Bonn published thirteen [actually fourteen] love letters from Beethoven to Josephine for the first time , as well as a fragment that has survived in Josephine's copy, which Beethoven had written to her during Josephine's widowhood between 1804 and 1809, the tone and choice of words of which are clearly related to the famous letter of July 1812. In these letters, Beethoven named Josephine, among other things, “angel” and “my everything” as well as “only beloved”, while in the famous letter of July 1812 he addressed the addressee with “my angel, my everything, my self” and she later as called his "Immortal Beloved". The book also contained some draft letters from Josephine to Beethoven from the same period. However, the fact that it became clear from the correspondence that Josephine had withdrawn from Beethoven under pressure from the family in the autumn of 1807 - she could only be denied during his visits - prompted the then head of the Beethoven House and editor of the correspondence, Schmidt- Görg to a foreword in which he, ignoring Kaznelson's conclusions, postulated that the correspondence proved the definitive end of the love affair and that Josephine could therefore not possibly have been the "Immortal Beloved". In 1970 the thesis of Brigitte and Jean Massin was taken up again, who now, in addition to their Beethoven compendium, presented a careful musicological study based on text comparisons with the fourteen letters previously published and not least on the basis of traces in Beethoven's compositions over decades pleaded for Josephine as by far the most plausible candidate for the "Immortal Beloved". Especially in the "lyrical minuet" written for Josephine, the Andante favori WoO 57, whose biographical significance only became manifest through the publication of the fourteen love letters to Josephine in the 1950s ("- here you - her - Andante -") she found a semantic cipher for “Jo-se-phi-ne”, which she believes runs through Beethoven's oeuvre in numerous metamorphoses.

In 1977 Harry Goldschmidt's mentioned basic study Um die Immortliche Beliebte appeared , in which he was able to eliminate all other candidates except Antonie Brentano and Josephine Brunsvik. Officially, he did not give preference to either of the two remaining women, but indirectly indicated sympathy for the Josephine hypothesis. With regard to Josephine, he succeeded, among other things, in sifting through the extensive correspondence of the Brunsvik family between 1799 and 1821 in the Deym family estate in southern Bohemia. He also expanded the approach developed by the Massins, “music as a biographical document”.

The first biography of Josephine Brunsvik was published in 1983 by Marie-Elisabeth Tellenbach. In Czechoslovakia and Hungary, which at that time still belonged to the Eastern Bloc, she unearthed numerous family documents in archives in South Bohemia and Budapest, which enabled her to reconstruct large parts of Josephine's life story. Tellenbach believes that he can provide evidence of sporadic (indirect and direct) contacts between Beethoven and Josephine for the period after the dramatic year 1812. In particular, she discovered a draft letter from Josephine to an unnamed man dated April 8th - the birthday of her daughter Minona - (very likely 1818), which in her opinion “could only have been addressed to Beethoven in terms of content and form and clearly the famous letters from Early time corresponds. ”Furthermore, Tellenbach took up the music-biographical approach of Massin and Goldschmidt in order to work out further references to Josephine in Beethoven's oeuvre.

The Canadian musicologist Rita Steblin built on the work of Tellenbach almost 20 years later . She clarified numerous other hitherto unknown facts from the life of Josephine and was able to prove that Josephine's second husband Christoph von Stackelberg had left his wife and family at the latest by the end of June 1812, and that Josephine was less than a month before Beethoven's meeting in Prague with the "Immortal Beloved “intended a trip to Prague.

However, so far there is no concrete evidence that Josephine traveled to Prague (and Carlsbad) at the time in question:

  1. It is not mentioned in a register of the Vienna police, which lists all those who left Vienna between June 28 and July 4, 1812. Beethoven left Vienna on June 29th at 4:00 am; Antonie Brentano left on July 1, 1812 at 2 a.m.
  2. In 1812 she did not appear in the tourist lists of the Prager Oberpostamts-Zeitung , in which numerous Prague visitors, especially nobles, were mentioned. Beethoven, who arrived in Prague on July 1st, and Antonie Brentano, who arrived on July 3rd, are named there.
  3. In 1812 it appears neither in the Karlovy Vary health resort lists nor in those of Franzensbad.

Dorothea von Ertmann

In 1969, after extensive research, the New York music writer George Marek (1902–1987) suggested that Dorothea von Ertmann could have been Beethoven's "Immortal Beloved". Marek was the first Western author to be allowed to research in the Czech archives in Prague, Teplitz and Karlsbad. He was able to see the police registration lists there, as well as the health resort lists and the Prager Oberpostamts-Zeitung , which also provided information about guests who had arrived. However, his thesis was questioned in 1972 by the Beethoven researcher Maynard Solomon, who also lived in New York , because Dorothea von Ertmann arrived in Karlsbad on June 25, 1812, i.e. before July 3, 1812, as the composer of the “Immortal Beloved “Met in Prague. There is no other evidence that she could have been the woman we were looking for. In 1977, Marek's thesis was discussed again by Harry Goldschmidt and also rejected.

Antonie Brentano

Prague, Hotel “Zum Schwarzen Ross”, lithograph (around 1820), Beethoven's quarters for the days from July 1st to 3rd, 1812

The hypothesis that the stranger could have been Antonie Brentano was first raised in 1955 by Jean Massin (1917–1986) and his wife Brigitte (1927–2002): “The assumption that it could have been Antonie Brentano is both seductive and seductive absurd. ”Independently of this and with detailed justification, the music journalist Yayoi Aoki first presented the thesis in 1959 in Japan . However, the three authors have not yet been able to do research in the archives of Karlsbad and Teplitz - in what was then the Eastern Bloc - what is now considered essential for a serious discussion. This was first done in the 1960s by George Marek. On the basis of the materials that Marek had gathered in what was then Czechoslovakia , Maynard Solomon again and in greater detail put forward the thesis in 1972 that the addressee was Antonie Brentano. This brought another, hitherto largely neglected candidate to the fore. Solomon's thesis was corroborated in 2001 by an extensive contribution by Klaus Martin Kopitz , which contains numerous previously unknown sources on Antonie Brentano's years in Vienna, including letters to her sister-in-law Bettina von Arnim .

“The letter, which had not been dated for a long time, is today very precisely dated to 6 July 1812 due to watermark findings and other findings, written in Teplitz. Above all, Beethoven writes in the letter that it was addressed to a woman in Karlsbad [,] and in Karlsbad there are still police registration registers from this time. "

- Klaus-Martin Kopitz

Antonie Brentano was the daughter of Johann Melchior Edler von Birkenstock , married the banker Franz Brentano in Vienna on July 20, 1798 and has lived with him in Frankfurt am Main ever since . In August 1809 she returned to Vienna for several years, initially to look after her seriously ill father, who died on October 30th. Antonie Brentano was the sole heir to his large villa in the suburb of Landstrasse , 98 Erdberggasse, and an extremely valuable art collection that she sold in the following years. The collection is now partly in the Albertina . In total, the inheritance was estimated at 144,474 guilders.

Beethoven met Antonie Brentano at the end of May 1810 through her sister-in-law Bettina Brentano . A deep friendship soon developed between the two, in her diary Antonie Brentano speaks of an "elective affinity". On March 11, 1811, she wrote to Bettina that Beethoven had become “one of her dearest people” and that she visited her “almost every day”. The same letter says that she hadn't seen her husband for six months. This letter and other documents suggest that the Brentano couple was increasingly considering a permanent separation during this period:

  • Even before Antonie Brentano's trip to Vienna, the children were “divided”, ie Antonie Brentano took her three daughters Maximiliane, Josefa and Fanny with him to Vienna, while their son Georg stayed with his father in Frankfurt.
  • Antonie Brentano extended the household liquidation of his father's villa to over three years.
  • Franz Brentano hardly seems to have been to Vienna in the three years. Even the letter contact was extremely low. On February 20, 1810, Antonie Brentano wrote to Bettina Brentano in Berlin that Franz Brentano was "buried in business" in Frankfurt. On March 11, 1811, she laconically reported to Bettina Brentano: "I don't hear a word from Sandgasse [the Brentano house in Frankfurt, where the company is based]."
  • From June 16 to July 8, 1810 Antonie Brentano stayed with her daughter Josefa - without Franz Brentano - for a cure in Karlsbad and then in Franzensbad .
  • From July 30th to August 24th, 1811, she and her daughter Josefa - again without Franz Brentano - can be traced back to Karlsbad and from August 26th to Franzensbad.
  • On January 9, 1812, she wrote from Vienna to her brother-in-law Clemens Brentano in Prague that she was “better kept in my hometown [Vienna] than in the hometown of my children [Frankfurt], enjoying true well-being and contentment, which allow casual conditions. "

In March 1812 she had Beethoven give her the original manuscript of his song An die Geliebte ( WoO 140), which he had composed in December 1811 and written to the Bavarian singer Regina Lang in the studbook. She noted on it: “I requested March 2, 1812 from the author”. This can be seen as an indication that Antonie Brentano saw herself as Beethoven's lover. The one-movement piano trio in B flat major, WoO 39, testifies to his frequent contacts with Antonie Brentano. The unusually neatly written autograph bears Beethoven's dedication: “Vienna on June 26th. 1812. for my little friend Maxe Brentano to encourage her to play piano. - lvBthwn. “Antonie Brentano's daughter Maximiliane was 10 years old at the time and later married the civil servant Friedrich von Blittersdorf . She was evidently a good pianist, as Beethoven also dedicated the Piano Sonata in E major op.109 to her in 1820 .

Solomon was able to prove that Antonie - now together with her husband - actually arrived in Prague at exactly the time in question, on July 3, 1812, where she was in the hotel "Red House" at Jesuitengasse 147, corner of Egidigasse (today Karlova ulice 44) descent. Furthermore, he was able to explain plausibly how she could have found out that Beethoven was also in town: Exactly on July 3, 1812, a report appeared in the German-language Prager Oberpostamts-Zeitung about some of the foreigners present, including: “Hr. Baron Wilison, Lieutenant v. EH Ludwig, from Vienna, (where in the red house.) Mr. v. Beethoven, composer, from Vienna, (where in the black horse) ”. The hotel “Zum Schwarzen Roß” was located in Prague's New Town , Alte Allee (later Auf dem Graben, today Na příkopě ) No. 861, and had a very good reputation: “The splendid house's location is pleasant, the rooms clean and large , the service prompt ". Beethoven's travel companion, the young Karl Wilhelm von Willisen , a friend of Karl August Varnhagen von Ense , also lived in the same hotel as Antonie Brentano. So she could have informed Beethoven of her presence in Prague and asked him to meet.

When trying to reconstruct the Prague meeting on July 3, 1812, it is of interest that Beethoven mentions a diplomat in the letter to his beloved, Prince Paul Anton III. Esterházy , whom Beethoven saw again in Teplitz. He calls him succinctly “Esterhazi” to the stranger and could therefore assume that she knew who from the widely ramified noble family is meant. That Esterházy stayed in Prague on the Lesser Town in the elegant hotel "Erzherzog Karl" at Karmelitergasse No. 379, only about 1000 m from Antonie Brentano's accommodation in the "Red House". A conceivable explanation for the mention of Esterházy would be that Antonie Brentano had suggested the "Archduke Karl" for the meeting on the evening of July 3rd, where the composer met the music-loving prince, who might ask him about his travel plans.

In addition, it could be proven that Antonie Brentano traveled on the morning of July 4, 1812 around 6 a.m. - with her husband, 5-year-old daughter Fanny and a nanny - from Prague to Karlovy Vary, where she and her family arrived on July 5 and the boarding house "To the eye of God" on the meadow No. 311. It is today's Café Pupp , which belongs to the famous Grandhotel Pupp . The spa list notes after the arrival date: “Mr. Franz Brentano, banker from Frankfurt, together with his wife and child.” The following day the registration in the police report was made: “Franz Brentano with his wife, child v. 5 years, Banquier, Frankfurth ”, together with a“ Bona ”(nanny); The estimated length of stay is given as five weeks. This agrees exactly with Beethoven's letter to the “Immortal Beloved”, from which it can be inferred that he suspected it to be in “K.” [Karlsbad] at the time the letter was written.

At the end of July 1812, Beethoven also traveled to Karlsbad and also moved to the “Zum Auge Gottes” guesthouse there. In Karlsbad he met the violinist Giovanni Battista Polledro , with whom he gave a concert on August 6, 1812. He then traveled with the Brentano family to Franzensbad , where he and the Brentanos also moved into the same quarters.

Then the Brentanos and Beethoven separated forever: Beethoven returned to Teplitz for several weeks, while Antonie Brentano traveled with her family to Vienna and then to Frankfurt. Beethoven alluded to the days spent together in his letter to Antonie Brentano of February 6, 1816, in which it says, "that I am happy to recall the hours that I spent in their mutual company, as the most unforgettable to me."

Antonie Brentano never went back to Vienna after that, but stayed in close contact with Beethoven. As recently as 1819, she campaigned - in vain - to ensure that Beethoven could have his nephew Karl educated by the famous pedagogue Johann Michael Sailer . The composer even turned to Emperor Franz I personally on this question on June 22, 1819 . The famous Beethoven portrait by Joseph Karl Stieler was commissioned by Antonie Brentano in 1820 . In 1822 the composer dedicated the English edition of the last piano sonata in C minor, Op. 111, and in 1823, the Diabelli Variations, Op. 120 .

Solomon's thesis, which can claim to fulfill all external preliminaries, has dominated the discussion in English-speaking countries as well as in Japan since then. However, it has a number of inconsistencies. The surviving sources are not so numerous, especially in Antonie Brentano's work, that they allow a detailed analysis of her relationship with Beethoven. Her letters to family members contain only a few hints of her deep admiration for the composer.

The English author Susan Lund takes the view that Karl Joseph Brentano , conceived in May / June 1812 - more than a month before the letter to the "Immortal Beloved" was written - could be Beethoven's son. He was born on March 8, 1813 in Frankfurt am Main and suffered from a severe physical and mental handicap, the consequences of which he died on May 18, 1850. His grave is in crypt 48 of the Frankfurt main cemetery , where other members of the Brentano family also found their final resting place. Lund sees an indication that Franz Brentano was not the father of Karl Joseph in the fact that he writes in a letter that he has “only one son” [Georg].

To check paternity, some Beethoven researchers have already considered the possibility of a DNA comparison .

Bettina von Arnim

Walden (2011) argues that Bettina von Arnim was Beethoven's “Immortal Beloved” based on the assumption that two of Beethoven's letters, which she published in her later life, were real. In general, these letters - as well as some that Bettina claims to have received from Goethe - are viewed in research as forgeries and are not recognized. “If this letter to Bettina is genuine, it would be conclusively proven that Bettina was the Immortal Beloved, but the original is lost and its authenticity is heavily questioned these days. ... their trustworthiness and their love of truth are now considered dubious. "

media

The theme of the immortal beloved was taken up in the 1994 US feature film with the original title Immortal Beloved .

literature

  • Anton Schindler (1840): Biography of Ludwig van Beethoven , Münster: Aschendorff
  • Mariam Tenger (1890): Beethoven's Immortal Beloved , Bonn: Nusser
  • Alfred Christlieb Kalischer (1891): Beethoven's “Immortal Beloved”. Giulietta Guicciardi or Therese Brunswick? Dresden
  • La Mara (1909): Beethoven's Immortal Beloved. Countess Brunsvik's secret and her memoirs , Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel
  • Max Unger (1909), On the problem of Beethoven's “Immortal Beloved” , in: Musikalisches Wochenblatt , vol. 40 (1909), pp. 356–358
  • Wolfgang Alexander Thomas-San-Galli (1910): Beethoven and the Immortal Beloved: Amalie Sebald. Goethe , Therese Brunswik and others , Munich: Wunderhorn
  • Max Unger (1911): In the footsteps of Beethoven's “Immortal Beloved” , Langensalza: Beyer
  • La Mara (1920): Beethoven and the Brunsviks. According to family papers from Therese Brunsvik's estate , Leipzig: seal
  • Oscar George Sonneck (1927): The Riddle of the Immortal Beloved , New York
  • Stephan Ley (1933): A picture of Beethoven's immortal lover? , in: Atlantis , Vol. 5 (1933), Heft 12, pp. 766–767 (about a portrait miniature from Beethoven's estate)
  • Romain Rolland (1928): Beethoven the Creator. The Great Creative Epochs: I. From the Eroica to the Appassionata . Translated by Ernest Newman. New York: Garden City
  • Marianne Czeke (1938): Brunszvik Teréz grófno naplói és feljegyzései [Countess Therese Brunsvik's diary and notes.] Vol. 1, Budapest
  • Kurt Smolle (1947): Beethoven's “Immortal Beloved”. A study , Vienna
  • Siegmund Kaznelson (1954): Beethoven's Faraway and Immortal Beloved , Zurich: Standard
  • Jean & Brigitte Massin (1955): Ludwig van Beethoven , Paris: Club Français du Livre (2nd edition 1967, as a German translation 1970 under the title: Beethoven. Material biography, data on the work and essay , Munich)
  • Joseph Schmidt-Görg (ed., 1957): Beethoven: Thirteen unknown letters to Josephine Countess Deym geb. v. Brunsvik , Bonn: Beethoven House
  • Marek, George R. (1969): Ludwig van Beethoven. Biography of a Genius. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. (in German: mvg, 1970, OCLC 174360714 )
  • Yayoi Aoki (1959), Ai no densetsu - Beethoven to 'fumetsu no koibito' ( Tradition of love - Beethoven and the "Immortal Beloved" ), in: Philharmony. NHK kôkyô gakudan kikanshi ( Philharmonic. Journal of the NHK Radio Orchestra ), Tokyo, vol. 31, no. 7 of September 1959, pp. 8-21
  • Dana Steichen (1959), Beethoven's Beloved , ed. by Edward Steichen, Ridgefield, Conn.
  • Editha & Richard Sterba (1964): Ludwig van Beethoven and his nephew. Tragedy of a genius. A psychoanalytic study , Munich (first edition: 1954, New York)
  • Bohumil Plevka (1965): Beethovenuv dopis nesmrtelné milence (Beethoven's letter to the immortal beloved), Teplice: Smer
  • Joseph Schmidt-Görg (1969): New documents on Beethoven and Josephine Countess Deym , in: Beethoven-Jahrbuch 1965/68 , pp. 205–208
  • Jean & Brigitte Massin (1970): Recherche de Beethoven , Paris: Fayard
  • Maynard Solomon (1972): New light on Beethoven's letter to an unknown woman , in: The Musical Quarterly , Vol. 58, pp. 572-587
  • Jan Racek (1972): When and where was Beethoven's letter to the “Immortal Beloved” written? , in: Communications from the Commission for Music Research , No. 21, Vienna, pp. 206–213
  • Gerda Brosche-Graeser (1974): Beethoven's immortal lover. Legends, assumptions, facts , Munich
  • Willy Hess (1976): Beethoven , revised new edition, Winterthur
  • Harry Goldschmidt (1977): About the Immortal Beloved. An inventory , Leipzig: Deutscher Verlag für Musik; in English: "All About Beethoven's Immortal Beloved. A Stocktaking". CreateSpace: Charleston, SC 2013
  • Maynard Solomon (1979): Beethoven , translated from the American by Ulrike v. Puttkamper, Munich
  • Harry Goldschmidt (1979): Aspects of Current Beethoven Research. Biography , in (ders .; ed.): Zu Beethoven. Essays and Annotations , Leipzig, pp. 167–242
  • Marie-Elisabeth Tellenbach (1983): Beethoven and his “Immortal Beloved” Josephine Brunswick. Your fate and the influence on Beethoven's work , Zurich, ISBN 3-254-00095-1
  • Virginia Beahrs (1986): The Immortal Beloved Revisited in: The Beethoven Newsletter 1/2 , pp. 22-24
  • Marie-Elisabeth Tellenbach (1987): Beethoven and the Countess Josephine Brunswick , in: The Beethoven Newsletter 2/3 , pp. 41–51
  • Virginia Oakley Beahrs (1988): The Immortal Beloved Riddle Reconsidered , in: Musical Times , Vol. 129/1740, pp. 64-70
  • Marie-Elisabeth Tellenbach (1988): Artists and estates around 1800: the role of guardianship laws in Beethoven's relationship with Josephine Countess Deym , in: Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 2/2 , pp. 253–263
  • Harry Goldschmidt (1988), “This is how everything perishes with an A”. A controversial diary in a new light , in: Zu Beethoven. 3. Articles and documents , ed. by Harry Goldschmidt, pp. 8–30
  • Susan Lund (1988): Beethoven: a true “fleshly father”? , in: Beethoven Newsletter , Vol. 3 (1988), No. 1, pp. 6-11 and No. 2, pp. 36-40
  • Maynard Solomon (1988), Recherche de Josephine Deym , in: ders., Beethoven Essays , Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 157-165 and 333-335
  • Maynard Solomon (1988), Antonie Brentano and Beethoven , in: Beethoven Essays , Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 166-189 and 335-340
  • Susan Lund (1991): “If one has only one son”: postscript to “Beethoven as a father” , in: Beethoven Newsletter , Vol. 6 (1991), No. 1, pp. 18-21
  • Virginia Beahrs (1993): Beethoven's Only Beloved? New Perspectives on the Love Story of the Great Composer , in: Music Review 54 , no. 3/4, pp. 183-197
  • Marie-Elisabeth Tellenbach (1993/1994): Psychoanalysis and the Historiocritical Method: On Maynard Solomon's Image of Beethoven , in: The Beethoven Newsletter 8/3 , pp. 84-92; 9/3, pp. 119-127
  • Ernst Pichler (1994): Beethoven. Myth and Reality , Vienna: Amalthea
  • Susan Lund (1995): Raptus: a novel about Beethoven based on the source material; annotated, with introductory articles , Herts, Melstamps (Cambs)
  • Yayoi Aoki (1995): Bohemia-Bētōven-kikō: "fumetsu-no-koibito" -no-nazo-o-otte ( visiting the "immortal beloved" with Beethoven in Bohemia ), Tōkyō: Tōkyō Shoseki
  • Gail S Altman (1996): Beethoven: A Man of His Word - Undisclosed Evidence for his Immortal Beloved , Anubian Press
  • Sieghard Brandenburg (ed., 1996–1998): Ludwig van Beethoven, correspondence. Complete edition , 7 volumes, Munich: Henle
  • Marie-Elisabeth Tellenbach (1998): Psychoanalysis and historical-philological method. On Maynard Solomon's Beethoven and Schubert interpretations , in: Analecta Musicologica 30 / II , pp. 661–719
  • Susan Lund (1998), The visit that Beethoven did not make: a journey to the Brentanohaus in Winkel, Germany , in: Beethoven Journal , Vol. 13 (1998), No. 1, pp. 24-30
  • Klaus Martin Kopitz (2001): Antonie Brentano in Vienna (1809–1812). New sources on the problem of “Immortal Beloved” , in: Bonner Beethoven Studies , Volume 2 (2001), pp. 115–146, ISBN 3-88188-063-1 , as a PDF file (396 KB)
  • Sieghard Brandenburg (ed., 2001): Beethoven. The letter to the immortal beloved , Bonn: Beethoven-Haus, ISBN 3-88188-045-3
  • Sieghard Brandenburg (2002): In the footsteps of Beethoven's “Immortal Beloved”. Some critical considerations , in: Österreichische Musikzeitschrift , vol. 57, issue 6/2002, pp. 5-8
  • Walther Brauneis (2002): "... make that I can live with you". New hypotheses on the identity of the “immortal beloved” , in: Österreichische Musikzeitschrift , vol. 57, issue 6/2002, pp. 9–22
  • Rita Steblin (2002): Josephine Countess Brunswick-Deym's secret revealed: New results on her relationship with Beethoven , in: Österreichische Musikzeitschrift , vol. 57, issue 6/2002, pp. 23–31 [1]
  • Brigitte Buschmann (2002): Are there any more recent findings on Goldschmidt's book "Um die Immortliche Geliebte"? , in: Artwork and Biography. Commemorative Harry Goldschmidt , ed. by Hanns-Werner Heister , Berlin, pp. 297-312
  • Lewis Lockwood (2003): Beethoven. The Music and the Life . New York: Norton
  • Klaus Martin Kopitz (2007): An unknown request from Beethoven to Emperor Franz I , in: Bonner Beethoven Studies , Volume 6 (2007), pp. 101–113
  • Rita Steblin (2007): “In this way with A everything perishes.” A New Look at Beethoven's Diary and the “Immortal Beloved” , in: Bonner Beethoven Studies , Volume 6 (2007), pp. 147-180
  • Susan Lund (2007): Beethoven and the Catholic Brentanos: The Story Behind Beethoven's Missa Solemnis , BookSurge, ISBN 978-1-4196-8144-8
  • Yayoi Aoki (2008): Beethoven - The deciphering of the riddle about the “Immortal Beloved” , translated from Japanese by Annette Boronnia, Munich, ISBN 978-3-89129-184-9
  • Klaus Martin Kopitz (2008): Antonie Brentano , in: Das Beethoven-Lexikon , ed. by Heinz von Loesch and Claus Raab, Laaber, pp. 144–145
  • Claus Raab (2008): Immortal Beloved , in: Das Beethoven-Lexikon , ed. by Heinz von Loesch and Claus Raab, Laaber, pp. 798–801
  • Rita Steblin (2009): Beethoven's “Immortal Beloved”: the solution to the riddle , in: Österreichische Musikzeitschrift , vol. 64, issue 2/2009, pp. 4–17
  • Rita Steblin (2009b): "A dear, enchanting girl who loves me and whom I love": New Facts about Beethoven's Beloved Piano Pupil Julie Guicciardi , in: Bonner Beethoven Studies , Volume 8 (2009), pp. 89–152
  • Susan Lund (2010): Beethoven's son - the inspiration for his greatest work , BookSurge Publishing
  • Edward Walden (2011): Beethoven's Immortal Beloved. Solving the Mystery , Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow
  • Sylvia Bowden (2015), Beethoven's 'Immortal Beloved': a passionate or compassionate relationship? , in: The Musical Times , vol. 156, no. 1931 (summer 2015), pp. 47–72
  • John E Klapproth (2016): Handbook: Immortal Beloved. Everything about the only woman Beethoven ever loved - and many others . Original: The Immortal Beloved Compendium. Everything About the Only Woman Beethoven Ever Loved - And Many He Didn't . Charleston, SC: CreateSpace.
  • Klaus Martin Kopitz (2020): The Letter to the Immortal Beloved. Facts and fictions , in: The Beethoven Collection of the Berlin State Library . “This kiss to the whole world!” , Ed. by Friederike Heinze, Martina Rebmann and Nancy Tanneberger, Petersberg: Michael Imhof 2020, pp. 156–163

Web links

Commons : Immortal Beloved  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Ludwig Nohl , Inventarium of the Beethoven'schen estate as far as it is in the estate of January 16 th. J. zu Bockenheim near Frankfurt a / M. deceased Professor Anton Schindler and is currently in the hands of Mrs. Marie Egloff geb. Schindler is located in Mannheim. ( Current owner of this collection, Mr. NOWOTNY Altrohlau and Carlsbad .) Taken in June 1864 in Mannheim by Ludwig Nohl from Munich , Karlsbad 1864, No. 6
  2. ^ The letter was published in Goldschmidt (1977), pp. 19f. published for the first time in the original spelling, including the passages deleted by Beethoven; also in Brandenburg (1996), No. 582, cf. also beethoven-haus-bonn.de
  3. ↑ Most authors concluded from this that Beethoven therefore suspected the addressee possibly also there - in Karlsbad. He expected the letter to arrive two days later. Since Karlsbad was easy to reach in one day from Teplitz, the addressee could also have been in a place (Franzensbad?) Which is two days away from Teplitz.
  4. ↑ Unger (1911), pp. 21-25
  5. ↑ Unger (1911), pp. 20f .; Goldschmidt (1977), pp. 47-51
  6. ↑ Brandenburg (1996), No. 583 (Beethoven used the same stationery for the letter as for the letter to the "Immortal Beloved").
  7. ↑ August Leopold Stöhr, Kaiser Karlsbad and this well-known health place memorabilia, for spa guests, non-spa guests and Karlsbad itself , 2nd edition, Karlsbad 1812, pp. 24-26
  8. ↑ Goldschmidt (1977), p. 54
  9. ↑ Mirko Očadlík, Několik dokumentů o Beethovenovu koncertním vystoupení v Karlových Varech v roce 1812 , in: Miscellanea musicologica , vol. 14 (1960), pp. 37-44 (originals of the letters in Prague, Národní archive)
  10. ↑ See the remark in the letter "Mondays - Thursdays - the only days the mail goes from here to K." and then "I cry when I think that you will probably only get the first message from me on Saturday", which in view of the The fact that the post only took 1 day to Karlsbad implies that the letter was addressed to a place 2 days from Teplitz (Franzensbad?).
  11. ^ Beethoven from the point of view of his contemporaries (2009), Volume 1, p. 157.
  12. ^ Beethoven from the perspective of his contemporaries (2009), Volume 1, p. 159.
  13. ↑ La Mara (1920), p. 1.
  14. ↑ See Goldschmidt (1977), pp. 182-185 and p. 349.
  15. ↑ Massin (1955), p. 244: "La moins absurde de toutes."
  16. ^ Schmidt-Görg (1957). Another fifteenth letter was added later, cf. Schmidt-Görg (1969).
  17. ↑ See Massin (1970), Goldschmidt (1977), pp. 144–156 and Tellenbach (1983), pp. 103f.
  18. ↑ cit. according to Schmidt-Görg (1957), p. 1 and 15.
  19. ↑ Quoted from Goldschmidt (1977), p. 19f.
  20. ↑ Kaznelson was previously the insight into the correspondence between Beethoven and Josephine from the owner of the letters at the time, Dr. HC Bodmer was refused in Zurich, cf. Goldschmidt (1977), p. 354, note 18.
  21. ↑ "Letters from Therese's estate reveal ... that, following the urging of the Brunsvik family, the relationship between Josephine Deym and Beethoven was broken off." As already mentioned in La Mara 1920, p. 62 f. Immortal Beloved ”, since she had erroneously dated the famous letter to 1807.
  22. ↑ “When Josephine married Baron Stackelberg, Beethoven's love affair with the Countess had come to an end. So there is no need to question his often-expressed attitude towards married women. The secret of the 'Immortal Beloved' remains hidden. "(Schmidt-Görg 1957, p. 31)
  23. ↑ Brandenburg (1996), No. 220.
  24. ↑ Massin (1970), p. 135.
  25. ↑ Goldschmidt (1977), p. 231.
  26. ↑ See Goldschmidt (1977), pp. 257-352.
  27. ↑ See Tellenbach (1983), pp. 151-161 and pp. 177f.
  28. ↑ Tellenbach (1983), pp. 194f, where the draft letter is also reproduced. It can also be found in the same volume as a facsimile before p. 113.
  29. ↑ Tellenbach (1983), pp. 205-267.
  30. ↑ Steblin (2007), pp. 163-169.
  31. ↑ Steblin (2007), pp. 158–163, especially the passage from Josephine's diary around / after June 8, 1812: “St [ackelberg] (…) is callous for those who plead in need. (…) I want Liebert in Prague [!] Speak. I never want to let the children go. "
  32. ^ Vienna, Austrian State Archives, General Administrative Archives, Police Yard Office GZ 698/27 ex 1812; quoted in Kopitz (2001), p. 136f.
  33. ↑ Goldschmidt (1977), p. 63.
  34. ↑ Your name had already been found in 1911 by Max Unger for the period in question together with the names of Marie von Erdödy and Dorothea von Ertmann in the Carlsbad spa lists.
  35. ↑ Massin (1955), p. 240: "L'hypothèse d'Antonia Brentano est à la fois séduisante et absurde."
  36. ^ Likewise Brandenburg (2001), Kopitz (2001, 2008), Aoki (2008).
  37. ↑ Christoph Schmitz-Scholemann : Beethoven's friend Antonie Brentano died. In: Calendar sheet (broadcast on DLF ). May 12, 2019, accessed May 15, 2019 .
  38. ↑ Kopitz (2001), p. 121
  39. ↑ Kopitz (2001), p. 129.
  40. ↑ Kopitz (2001), p. 128.
  41. ↑ Kopitz (2001), p. 122
  42. ↑ Kopitz (2001), p. 128
  43. ↑ Kopitz (2001), p. 124
  44. ↑ Kopitz (2001), p. 131
  45. ↑ Kopitz (2001), p. 134f.
  46. ↑ Goldschmidt (1977), p. 138 f .; Kopitz (2001), p. 135.
  47. ↑ See the autograph in the Beethoven House in Bonn
  48. ↑ Prager Oberpostamts-Zeitung , No. 81 of July 6, 1812, p. 777: “Arrived in Prague. The 3rd. Mr. Brentano, businessman, from Vienna. (where in the red house.) “; Kopitz (2001), p. 137.
  49. ↑ Prager Oberpostamts-Zeitung , No. 80 of July 3, 1812, p. 765; quoted according to Kopitz (2001), p. 137.
  50. ^ Address in: Schematism of the Kingdom of Bohemia for the year 1839 , p. 587
  51. ↑ Adolph von Schaden : Critical leap from Dresden to Prague , Schneeberg 1822, p. 197
  52. ↑ Kopitz (2001), p. 138
  53. ↑ Kopitz (2001), p. 139
  54. ↑ Brandenburg (1996), No. 897
  55. ↑ Kopitz (2007)
  56. ↑ For example, it is unclear how, in view of Antonie Brentano's short stay in Prague and the fact that she was there with her husband, daughter Fanny and nanny, the meeting in question with Beethoven, possibly including physical union (some formulations in the letter for this), has to present at all (cf. Steblin 2007, p. 148 and Goldschmidt 1977, p. 123). The same applies to Beethoven's dense coexistence with the Brentano couple and their followers in Karlsbad and then in Franzensbad (cf. Goldschmidt 1977, p. 125).
  57. ↑ Frankfurt Main Cemetery, Gruftenhalle, Gruft 48
  58. ↑ Goldschmidt (1977), pp. 536-538; Tellenbach (1983), pp. 100f; Lockwood (2003), p. 492, n. 7.
  59. ↑ "If that letter to Bettina was genuine, it would prove conclusively that Bettina was the Immortal Beloved, but the original has not survived, and the authenticity is strongly doubted today. ... her reliability and truthfulness are today under a cloud. "(Walden 2011, p. 5)
personal data
SURNAME Immortal Beloved
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Addressee of a letter that Ludwig van Beethoven wrote
DATE OF BIRTH 18th century
DATE OF DEATH after 1812