Beethoven's daughter?

[Bonn1827]

"Even had the affair finished, it couldn't have been so bitter that they had nothing to do with each other after so many years of intimate association." (I couldn't properly edit these remarks).


Beethoven was a human being and I think we would be naive to believe that acrimony and bitterness over a failed relationship would be the exclusive prerogative of the non-musical!! I'm sure it could be just as potent and vicious for Beethoven as for the rest of us.

[Peter]

"Even had the affair finished, it couldn't have been so bitter that they had nothing to do with each other after so many years of intimate association." (I couldn't properly edit these remarks).


Beethoven was a human being and I think we would be naive to believe that acrimony and bitterness over a failed relationship would be the exclusive prerogative of the non-musical!! I'm sure it could be just as potent and vicious for Beethoven as for the rest of us.

Fanny Giannatassio (who herself was infatuated with Beethoven and deeply disappointed when she found out about Beethoven's feelings for another women) made it clear that Beethoven was still in love with this women 5 years on - that doesn't sound like bitterness towards the women concerned. Beethoven was resigned to the fact that it could not be.

I think this woman may well be Therese Malfatti. She fits the time scale of around 5 years, it was 6 but Beethoven's memory could be playing tricks here. It is possible Beethoven was considering marriage as Breuning remarks around 1810 that his marriage plans had come to nothing probably because of family objections which would have proved THE obstacle to the whole affair (indeed Therese's niece later claimed this is exactly what happened). Is it not possible that the K in the letter was not karlsbad as is assumed, but Krems where Therese's family had an estate nearby? I also think the year 1816 is highly significant as Beethoven refers to his unhappy love twice in a way that reveals he has given up hope - that was the year Therese married.