Antonie Brentano
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Antonie (von Birkenstock) Brentano, (Vienna, April 28, 1780 – April 12, 1869, Frankfurt am Main) is notable as being one of the likelier of the many possible candidates put forward[1] by scholars as composer Ludwig van Beethoven's Unsterbliche Geliebte, or "Immortal Beloved". Beethoven dedicated the Diabelli Variations Op. 120 to her, and his piano sonata Op. 90 to Maximiliane, her daughter. Her handwriting has been identified on a manuscript copy of the song cycle, An die ferne Geliebte ("To the Distant Beloved"), in which the following is written: "Requested by me from the author on March 2, 1812". On June 26, 1812 Beethoven wrote out an affectionate dedicatory message to her daughter on his piano trio in B flat (WoO 39).
Antonie, the daughter of Johann-Melchior von Birkenstock, was married in 1798 to the Frankfurt banker Franz Brentano, who was a good friend of Beethoven during the family's short stay in Vienna (the purpose of which was to tie up the Birkenstock estate after the death of Antonie's father). His half-sister was Bettina von Arnim née Brentano, who may have introduced Antonie to the composer in 1811.
[edit] Beethoven's Immortal Beloved?
The sole documentary evidence for the "Immortal Beloved" is a soul-searcing and impassioned letter Beethoven wrote over a period of three days from the Bohemian spa of Teplitz (probably dateable to July 1812, though the year is not given) addressed to an unnamed woman with whom the week before he had had a meeting in Prague or Vienna, and with whom in the letter he is making plans to meet in a place with initial "K", which most writers, following Maynard Solomon, have assumed to be Karlsbad. The wording of the letter suggests an existing loving relationship of long standing. In its pages, Beethoven broaches and discusses the possibility for, and impediments to, marriage:
Good morning, on July 7 Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, now and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn whether or not fate will hear us - I can live only wholly with you or not at all - Yes, I am resolved to wander so long away from you until I can fly to your arms and say that I am really at home with you, and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits - Yes, unhappily it must be so - You will be the more contained since you know my fidelity to you. No one else can ever possess my heart - never - never - Oh God, why must one be parted from one whom one so loves. And yet my life in V is now a wretched life - Your love makes me at once the happiest and the unhappiest of men - At my age I need a steady, quiet life - can that be so in our connection?.. (excerpt)
Upon Beethoven's death in 1827, the letter was found among his private papers, strongly suggesting either that it was never sent or that it was returned to him subsequently by the addressee. The current academic favour for Antonie Brentano as the putative recipient may be attributed to the arguments adduced in an influential book by the psychoanalyst and Beethoven scholar, Maynard Solomon.
Solomon[2] writes:
"She must be a woman well known to Beethoven in Vienna; she must have been in Prague in the first week of July 1812; and she must have been in the Bohemian spa town of Karlsbad in the weeks following." (It should be borne in mind that Beethoven never refers to Karlsbad in the letter by name, instead using the initial "K", which one researcher has suggested might refer instead to Klosterneuberg - the nearest post-stop to Countess Anna-Marie Erdödy's estate at Jedlersee.)
Thus Solomon sums up the three primary requirements for her identification, based on his own reading of evidence contained in the letter.
An additional (external) requirement suggested by Solomon is that the woman is possibly the "A" mentioned by Beethoven in Anton Gräffer's copy of Beethoven's Tagebuch (diary) entry of 1812:
"In the way with A., everything goes to ruin."
Since it is not even sure that Gräffer's transcription of the entry is correct, the letter "A" alone cannot provide basis for a reliable identification.
[edit] Antonie and Alternative Claimants
Among the many obstacles to acceptance of Solomon's claim is that Antonie Brentano is not the only woman with initial "A" who was close to Beethoven during the period in question (1811-1812), and it is known that she was called by the affectionate name Toni within her circle of family and friends. Thus Beethoven, if referring to Antonie, would more likely have employed the initial "T". It should perhaps also be noted that when Antonie left Vienna again for Frankfurt in 1812, she left for good, and there is no record of further personal or written contact between the composer and herself after that time, though it is clear from his dedications that he continued to consider himself a close friend of the Brentano family.
Two more "A" candidates, however, are Amalie Sebald and Countess Anna-Marie Erdödy, the latter not only fitting all of Solomon's identification criteria but also arguably Beethoven's closest friend and confidante for the longest period of his life.
The scholar Gail S. Altman puts forward a case for Anna-Marie — along with an exhaustive refutation of Solomon's claims for Antonie Brentano — in a study[3] devoted to the question of the mysterious woman's identity and Beethoven's relationships in general, drawing particular attention to the composer's record of honourable conduct in all his dealings with married women. Altman goes on to underline that it would have been against Beethoven's deepest precepts to betray a friend (Franz Brentano) by carrying on an affair with his wife (Antonie) - as Solomon imputes.
[edit] References
- ^ Oakley Beahrs, Virginia: The Immortal Beloved Riddle Reconsidered, Musical Times, Vol. 129, No. 1740 (Feb., 1988), pp. 64-70
- ^ Solomon, Maynard Beethoven,1977
- ^ Altman, Gail S. Beethoven: A Man of His Word - Undisclosed Evidence for his Immortal Beloved, Anubian Press 1996; ISBN 1-888071-01-X
