Immortal Beloved

The Immortal Beloved (German "Unsterbliche Geliebte") is the mysterious addressee of a love letter which composer Ludwig van Beethoven wrote on 6–7 July 1812 in Teplitz. The apparently unsent letter was found in the composer's estate after his death, after which it remained in the hands of Anton Schindler until his death, was subsequently willed to his sister, and was sold by her in 1880 to the Berlin State Library, where it remains today. The letter is written in pencil and consists of three parts.

Since Beethoven did not specify a year, nor a location, an exact dating of the letter and identification of the addressee was speculative until the 1950s, when an analysis of the paper's watermark yielded the year, and by extension the place. Scholars have since this time been divided on the intended recipient of the Immortal Beloved letter. The two candidates favored by most contemporary scholars are Antonie Brentano and Josephine Brunsvik. Other candidates who have been conjectured, with various degrees of mainstream scholarly support, are Julie ("Giulietta") Guicciardi, Therese von Brunsvik, Anna-Marie Erdödy, Bettina Brentano, and several others.