Immortal Beloved

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

The Immortal Beloved is the name given to the unknown woman Beethoven wrote a love letter to in 1812. He wrote the letter on July 6 or 7 while in Teplitz (now in the Czech Republic), but it was never sent. The letter is written in pencil on ten small pages and was found after Beethoven’s death. It is now kept in the Berlin State Library. The text itself does not name a year or place, but scholars later dated it to 1812 using paper watermarks.

Who was the recipient? That question has sparked a long debate. The two main candidates supported by most modern scholars are Antonie Brentano and Josephine Brunsvik. Over the years, many other women have been proposed, including Julie Guicciardi, Therese Brunsvik, Amalie Sebald, Dorothea von Ertmann, Therese Malfatti, Anna Maria Erdődy, and Bettina Brentano, among others.

What happened in the study of the letter? In 1957, a researcher published a batch of Beethoven letters to Josephine Brunsvik, which made many researchers think the Immortal Beloved letter was likely to Josephine. Since then, different scholars have argued for Josephine or for Antonie Brentano, and some have considered other candidates. The discussion became more complex as new documents from the Brunsvik family and other archives came to light.

Today, many experts still see Josephine Brunsvik as a very strong candidate, especially because of later letters and diary notes from Therese Brunsvik that fit the story of a deep, lifelong love. Other scholars have argued for Antonie Brentano, and a few have suggested still other possibilities. The case remains unsettled, with supporters and detractors on all sides, and no final proof.

In popular culture, the Immortal Beloved has been the subject of books, films, and music. A 1994 film presented Beethoven’s sister-in-law Johanna Reiss as the Immortal Beloved, a portrayal not supported by the scholarly consensus. In 2012, a song cycle called Letters to the Immortal Beloved set excerpts from the 1812 letter to music.