Immortal Beloved

[robert newman]

I'm certainly no expert on Beethoven but have of course read Thayer and love the great man's music so very, very much.

The puzzle of the Immortal Beloved seems able to resist being solved. Not having studied it in great depth I'd like to ask if it is possible that, in some way, Beethoven himself IS his own Immortal Beloved, in the sense that the woman he really loved was the mother of Karl ? For, what is 'immortal' about his beloved except Beethoven's belief that she was unobtainable to be united with him in this life. A mind and a character as powerful as Beethoven's may have married her in his own mind and with the creation of this document seem himself and her as one privately united till the end of his life.

Is there any text that Beethoven wrote which rules out this possibility ?

I feel instinctively that this was no ordinary love affair, no ordinary romance that was thwarted. It was something much deeper.

Regards

Robert

[Peter]

Originally posted by robert newman:

I'm certainly no expert on Beethoven but have of course read Thayer and love the great man's music so very, very much.

The puzzle of the Immortal Beloved seems able to resist being solved. Not having studied it in great depth I'd like to ask if it is possible that, in some way, Beethoven himself IS his own Immortal Beloved, in the sense that the woman he really loved was the mother of Karl ? For, what is 'immortal' about his beloved except Beethoven's belief that she was unobtainable to be united with him in this life. A mind and a character as powerful as Beethoven's may have married her in his own mind and with the creation of this document seem himself and her as one privately united till the end of his life.

Is there any text that Beethoven wrote which rules out this possibility ?

I feel instinctively that this was no ordinary love affair, no ordinary romance that was thwarted. It was something much deeper.

Regards

Robert

Well you would not have discerned from Thayer that Beethoven loved Johanna - there is no evidence to suggest she was the IB, only a fanciful film. Most scholars accept Solomon's theory that Antonie Brentano was the IB, but although a strong case can be made for her there is no conclusive proof and I and others here do not believe she was the intended recipient of those letters.

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'Man know thyself'