Bettina's Secret
The Riddle of The 'Immortal Beloved' - again!
To hark back to an earlier theme and perhaps by way of a slight diversion from the previous postings, I thought It might be interesting to look again at what I think is and Important topic in our studies, ie. the relationship between Beethoven and the woman who, after his own mother, probably inspired the deepest feelings of love, admiration and respect that he ever felt towards another human being - Bettina Brentano. I find her an interesting and mysterious historical personage, and I think the relationship between Beethoven and Bettina is an interesting side light on possible influences on B's music.
Beethoven thought so much of Bettina that he appears to have asked his publishers to dedicate to her his Mass in C.
Beethoven's so called 'Immortal Beloved'- as we all know, remains a puzzle, still without a conclusive and universally accepted resolution.
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Bettina's Secret.
When Schindler visited Bettina to interview her about her letters from Beethoven written more that 30 years before, she was a respected, albeit controversial, Berlin widow with six children still alive. Schindler had already included without question in the first edition of his Beethoven biography the three letters she had published.
Then, when she declined to show him any of them, or even talk about Beethoven at all, his suspicions were reinforced. Schindler of course could not know that one of the three Beethoven letters she published would later be found or that Beethoven's inscription to Bettina of a song included with another would also be found. He would also not have know that Bettina's publisher would certify that he saw the three Beethoven letters when they were printed, nor that Moriz Carriere, a prominent Berlin professor and author, would confirm having seen them before their publication and confirmed their authenticity.
It was not a part of Bettina's nature to decline to give information about Beethoven to one of his biographers. So why did she refuse to show Schindler any of her Beethoven letters or even talk to him about B at all.
At the time of Schindler's visit, it is likely that Bettina would not have wanted her family or the public at large to learn of early regrets about her decision to marry, especiallyin a book that would be widely circulated. She had already embarrassed her family with her publication of the Goethe letters. The Beethoven letters must have been more damaging, because Beethoven, unlike Geothe, loved her and wrote to her about it. As to why she did not volunteer to show to Schindler the three letters she had previously published, she may already have given one away to her friend Nathusius. And if the originals of the other two used the intimate German "du" form as did the found letter (as confirmed in the recollections of Moriz Carriere, who had seen them), it would lead to questions from Schindler that could force her to reveal her secret. That would be especially so if the "du" form had been used in the last line of Beethoven's farewell letter handed to her in Tepliz in 1812, which closed with the words "Dear God, how I love you" For example, Bettina changed the "du" form used on one sentence of the Beethoven letters first published by her to the formal "Sie" form when she published them the second time several years later.
Bettina's private papers and correspondence were not released to the public by her family until 1929, when they were auctioned off. The Goethe correspondence can now be found in the Pierpont Morgan library in New York.
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This extract on Bettina's Secret, is taken from - Edward Walden, a retired lawyer living in Toronto who has been researching Bettina Brentano for many years.
ps. Apologies if this has been a bit too lengthy, but I find it fascinating.
Lysander.
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