The Period of Speculation (1827 To 1969)
In his biography of Beethoven, Schindler (1840) suspected Giulietta ("Julie") Guicciardi. to be the “Immortal Beloved”. But research by Tellenbach (1983) indicates that her cousin Franz von Brunsvik may have suggested Giulietta as the possible "Immortal Beloved" (when talking to Schindler), keen as he was to distract any suspicion away from his sister Josephine, with whom Beethoven had been hopelessly in love from 1799 to ca. 1809/1810; but this was always kept a secret, and in fact was not known for certain until 1957. Furthermore, Schindler's biography was long ago found to be extremely unreliable, with many well-documented forgeries (including the destruction of documents, letters and conversation books). Therese von Brunsvik, who had been her sister Josephine's lifelong companion and was probably the only one who knew all about her love for Beethoven, commented on the publication of Schindler's conjecture: "Three letters by Beethoven, allegedly to Giulietta. Could they be hoaxes?”
Tenger (1890) published a fictional diary of Therese which was subsequently dismissed as a “chimera”, but La Mara (1909) published Therese's authentic memoirs, which show her full of admiration and adoration of Beethoven. This, together with interviews of some of the Brunsvik descendants, led her to the conclusion that Therese must have been the "Immortal Beloved."
At first most researchers, He thought the letter must have been written around 1806-07. Thomas-San-Galli (1909, 1910) checked out the official listings of guests in Bohemia, and at first (in 1909) concluded that Amalie Sebald was the "Immortal Beloved." (Beethoven met her later several times and wrote her a few friendly letters, but these were certainly not love letters.) Amalie was definitely not in Prague at the beginning of July 1812, and Cooper (2000, p. 416) consequently ruled her out as a candidate. Thomas-San-Galli then speculated (in 1910) that it might instead have been Therese, who he thought could have (secretly) traveled to Prague.
Doubts were raised by de Hevesy (1910), who ruled out Therese, and by Unger (1910) against Amalie Sebald. A summary of the older literature can be found in Forbes (1967, pp. 1088–1092).
There was also a forged Beethoven letter by Paul Bekker in Die Musik, But it was already shown to be a hoax by Newman (1911) –- a last-ditch effort to salvage the discredited Guicciardi hypothesis.
The date of the "Immortal Beloved" letter –- 6/7 July 1812 -– has meanwhile been firmly established, not only by watermarks and references, but also by a later letter by Beethoven to Varnhagen, which suggests he must have met his “Immortal Beloved” on 3 July 1812: "I am sorry, dear V., that I could not spend the last evening in Prague with you, and I myself found it impolite, but a circumstance I could not foresee prevented me."
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’".”
Czeke (1938, for the first time, published Therese’s diary notes ending in 1813; some were known already to Rolland (1928). and concluded that Beethoven was in love with Josephine, but nonetheless he tended towards Therese as the “Immortal Beloved”.
Kaznelson (1954) evaluated more of the documents in the Brunsvik estates, and even though he thought that Rahel Varnhagen was behind the “Distant Beloved” he concluded that the “Immortal Beloved” must have been Josephine mainly because her daughter Minona was born exactly nine months after the encounter with Beethoven and her husband Baron Stackelberg was away. Kaznelson arrived at his conclusion even though H C Bodmer in Zürich, owner of the “13 Letters” after World War II (see following), would not allow him access to them.
Editha & Richard Sterba (1954), using psychoanalysis, argued for nephew Karl as the “Immortal Beloved”.
Steichen (1959) identified Marie Erdödy to have been a lifelong beloved of Beethoven, and thus could also be the “Immortal Beloved”.
Marek (1969) argued the case for Dorothea Ertmann.
Read more about this topic: Immortal Beloved
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