Beethoven’s Immortal Beloved Identified — Rita Steblin Interview | Op. 1
Who was Beethoven’s Immortal Beloved, the unknown woman mentioned in a passionate letter discovered after Beethoven’s death? This question has obsessed people for almost 200 years. Our guest, musicologist Dr. Rita Steblin, finally identifies the correct woman.
In this episode, you’ll:
Solve the long-disputed mystery of Beethoven’s Immortal Beloved
Unearth details of this woman’s life and her irresistible charm
Understand why Beethoven never sent the letter
Be shocked by the surprising end result of this romance
For the best experience, please watch the video at the top of the page.
Episode Transcript and Timestamps
DANIEL ADAM MALTZ: Grüß Sie from Vienna, Austria. Welcome to Classical Cake, the podcast where we discuss topics relating to Viennese classical music while enjoying one of Vienna's delicious cakes. I'm your host Daniel Adam Maltz.
Today we will solve the mystery behind one of classical music history's most famous love stories: the identity of Beethoven's Immortal Beloved.
My guest is Dr. Rita Steblin, a musicologist whose archival work combines music history, iconography, and genealogical research. Dr. Steblin, thank you for joining me.
DR. RITA STEBLIN: It's a pleasure to be here.
Featured cake: Schoko-Mousse Herz [0:45]
MALTZ: Today's cake is a Schoko-Mousse Herz, or chocolate mousse heart.
This treat has a thin base of chocolate sponge cake and a chocolate mousse filling. It is completely coated in dark chocolate and is decorated with gold leaf. All of this is cut, appropriately, in the shape of a heart.
Let's dig in.
Why has the Beethoven Immortal Beloved letter captured imaginations? [1:35]
MALTZ: The famously temperamental Beethoven never married, but, between July 6th and 7th in 1812, Beethoven wrote a three-part letter. In it, he writes of his unconditional love and devotion to someone he refers to as his Unsterbliche Geliebte, or Immortal Beloved. He never sent this letter.
The letter was discovered after Beethoven's death and, naturally, sparked intense curiosity about what woman inspired such passion. Researchers have been divided as to whom was the intended recipient. Many times it's fostered a heated debate.
Finding the answer required cross-referencing 200-year-old letters, diaries, memoirs, as well as other documents to find clues. It also required challenging previously-accepted scholarship and approaching the subject from new angles to find the truth. But, through dedication, Dr. Steblin finally solved this mystery.
Dr. Steblin, why has the idea of Beethoven's Immortal Beloved captured imaginations for almost 200 years?
STEBLIN: Well, the letter itself is one of the most passionate letters that anyone has ever written and certainly the most passionate by a composer. And, because there's a mystery behind it, people wanted to solve the mystery and each generation has had a go at it.
MALTZ: People love a story, right? They want to feel like they're a part of it.
Search motivations [2:35]
MALTZ: What motivated your search for Beethoven's Immortal Beloved?
STEBLIN: When I was a piano teacher in Vancouver for seven years, I read the book by Marie-Elisabeth Tellenbach on Josephine Brunsvik as the Immortal Beloved. And that convinced me that she had the right woman.
I mean, I can't say that I was the first to come up with Josephine. In fact, it was an earlier woman who actually, in my mind, solved the mystery. And this was La Mara. She was in her eighties in 1920 when she brought out the book. But, she was already in her eighties and died soon after. And so that's where it remained. I mean, because her solution was never taken seriously. I should go back and explain that.
This letter was found in Beethoven's estate along with the Heiligenstadt Testament, and it ended up in Schindler's possession. How?! Schindler brought out the first official biography of Beethoven in 1840 and, there, he claimed that the letter mentioned Julie Guicciardi. She was the dedicatee of the Moonlight Sonata.
And it wasn't until 1860 when he brought out another edition of his Beethoven biography with a facsimile of the letter that people could see… Oh, Julie isn't even mentioned in Beethoven's letter. So it was just made up by Schindler.
The Immortal Beloved’s appeal [4:20]
MALTZ: So, as we mentioned, Josephine Brunsvik as the Immortal Beloved. What do we know about Josephine and why would Beethoven have been so enraptured by her?
STEBLIN: Josephine came to Vienna in May of 1799 with her mother and her older sister Therese, to have piano lessons with Beethoven.
Therese explains all of this in her memoirs in great detail and how Beethoven was so taken with the musicality and, I guess, with the beauty of Josephine that instead of just one hour a day, he would teach them for four hours a day.
They also went on picnics, and outings, and to fortepiano workshops and Beethoven recommended a Walter piano and so on.
So, he was with them for this whole time, but Josephine's mother was looking for a husband for her daughters and the older one, Therese, well, she sort of had a bit of a crooked back and wasn't that attractive. So Josephine was very charming, very beautiful.
On one of their outings, they went to the wax museum of Count Deym, Joseph Deym. And he later said that as soon as he saw Josephine he said she is going to be my wife.
MALTZ: So this speaks to Josephine's magnetic appeal.
STEBLIN: Exactly. I think she had this attraction. The men just fell for her. It wasn't just her husband, Deym.
What I am bringing out now are the 108 marriage letters between Deym and Josephine and they're very erotic and they show that it was really a loving marriage, not like what you read in Therese's memoirs.
Similarities between letters to the Immortal Beloved and Josephine [6:20]
MALTZ: Let's get to the evidence you discovered. You presented some interesting similarities between letters known to be written by Beethoven to Josephine and the 'Immortal Beloved' letter.
STEBLIN: After the second world war, the communists came into the Czech Republic and descendants of Josephine – of her son Fritz – fled and they took with them 14 letters that they had in Beethoven's hand. And these are love letters from Beethoven to Josephine that he wrote between about 1804 and 1809 – this was the period after Deym had died.
Josephine was a widow with four young children and Beethoven gave concerts in her house. She was now running this museum and he continued to give her lessons.
And so you have these letters that turned up, and the language is very close to what Beethoven used in the letter to the Immortal Beloved – calls her, my angel, my all. And he talks about his love for her and that he's won her heart and that she will make him more productive in his compositions and that she knows he's faithful to her and no other woman can win his heart.
You have the same sort of wording in these earlier love letters and the letter to the Immortal Beloved where he says, ‘you know I have been faithful to you that no other woman can...’
Significance of ‘du’ [8:08]
MALTZ: To clarify for those who don't speak German, please explain the significance of Beethoven referring to Josephine as 'du' instead of the formal 'Sie.'
STEBLIN: Yeah, it's like the French 'tu'. Beethoven very rarely used 'du' and to use 'du' with a woman…
MALTZ: Especially a married woman, I imagine.
STEBLIN: Yes. It would have meant that there had been an intimate love relationship.
Marrying Stackelberg [8:49]
MALTZ: You mentioned Deym had died in 1804. And so Beethoven now was writing letters to the widowed Josephine Brunsvik. So when did Josephine marry Stackelberg?
STEBLIN: What you get in these 14 love letters and there are drafts of her replies… you see that towards the end, around 1807 Josephine didn't allow Beethoven into her house anymore.
And I had found a letter from Charlotte, the youngest sister who had just gotten married and – this is in 1807 – where she's warning Josephine don't be alone with Beethoven. Don't let him into your house. Let God return peace to your soul and so that you can return to your children and your family.
MALTZ: Which of course, very similar to the 'Immortal Beloved' letter in the way that Beethoven says you're hiding yourself.
STEBLIN: Exactly. He says, and don't hide yourself from me. So what other woman meets that? I mean, you have this case where she did not allow him into her house and hid herself from him.
So, in 1808, Josephine, Therese, and the two little boys, Fritz and Karl went on a long journey and ended up in Switzerland. And it was there that they met Stackelberg, who was an Estonian baron.
And I discovered that Josephine got pregnant and her fifth child was illegitimate, Maria Laura. And so she was in a sense forced to marry this baron. So, the marriage took place in Gran, Esztergom, Hungary in February of 1810.
I just recently discovered another letter by Therese to Josephine with the proof that they were hiding Maria Laura for about three years.
And I also found another letter from Therese to Josephine. This is much later where she's recommending that they go for a holiday together and she says, we could go to Naples, we could go to Brazil, or we could go to England with Beethoven. And this is dated 1818.
And all the people, all these scholars in the States and in England and Germany who claim that Josephine cannot be the Immortal Beloved. They're all saying there's no proof that there was any contact between Josephine and Beethoven later on. Well, here you have 1818.
An unexpected encounter [11:34]
MALTZ: So let's move forward. It's believed that Beethoven had a surprise encounter with his Immortal Beloved in Prague on July 3rd, 1812, just three days before the 'Immortal Beloved' letter is written. What is the evidence that this encounter took place and what clues place Josephine in Prague at this time?
STEBLIN: We know from Therese Brunsvik's memoirs that there was a serious fight between Josephine and her second husband, Stackelberg, in June of 1812 and that Stackelberg got really angry and left.
So Josephine was left alone and there were great financial problems. And we know, in fact, I found documents in Brno that Stackelberg had made a quick trip to Prague in 1811 to borrow money from a banker there. And this money was now due, and Stackelberg had left Josephine.
And so she had a wagon with horses. She had many relatives from her first husband in Prague and after Deym's death, she took all her four children to speak with the Emperor Franz. And he said, ‘Don't worry, your children are my children.’
Well, the emperor was in Prague on July 1st and so I think that she wanted to try to solve these financial problems by speaking with the emperor and speaking with relatives of her husband.
And then working on her papers in Jindrichuv Hradec, I found some diaries, not really chronological, but some of the entries are June 1812 and one of the entries says, ‘I want to speak to Liebert in Prague.’ And we also know from her sister Therese's memoirs that Josephine had made a plan for 1812.
Therese was supposed to take care of the older children in a villa in the suburbs of Vienna. And Josephine wanted to go again to Karlsbad. And so Therese certainly spent the summer of 1812 taking care of the children in a villa in Hucking, and so where was Josephine?
And we know that Beethoven met unexpectedly someone in Prague because in a letter later to Varnhagen von Ense, he apologizes for not having kept an appointment that he had made on the evening of July the 3rd.
And so when the letter to the Immortal Beloved, dated July 6th only mentions the trip between Prague and Teplitz where Beethoven was writing this letter. So, in other words, he must have met this woman in Prague on the 3rd, because that's when he didn't keep his appointment.
The importance of ‘A’ vs ‘St’ [15:00]
MALTZ: So up to this point, we've discussed Beethoven longing after Josephine for years, a surprise encounter where they spent the night together in Prague and the Immortal Beloved letter that Beethoven never sent, where he pleaded for Josephine to find a way for them to be together.
Then there comes an entry in Beethoven's diary that ends “Auf diese Art mit 'A' geht alles zu Grunde.” This means in this manner with (the initial A) everything goes to ruin. Besides clearly stating that there was not a happy ending to this affair, many researchers also said that if the Immortal Beloved were Josephine, that the diary entry would have to read, “In this manner with J, everything goes to ruin.” In fact, there's been a lot of confusion surrounding this initial A.
STEBLIN: Beethoven wrote this entry in a diary that he started in the fall of 1812. It's actually the first entry. And, because of this letter that looked like 'A', in the first copy… because Beethoven's diary is actually missing and we only have two copies. And a lot of scholars in the 20th century claimed that this letter 'A' referred to the Immortal Beloved.
And so they were looking for a woman whose first name started with 'A.' So that's where you get Antonie Brentano or Almérie Esterházy or Amalie Sebald, and so on.
I like to look at old problems from a new angle as I said, well… ‘Auf diese Art mit 'A' geht alles zu Grunde.” Why, why should the letter 'A' refer to the woman? The problem person would be her husband, that he's the one that's causing all the problems for Beethoven.
And because I did so much work on papers in the archives, especially in Jindrichuv Hradec where you have all the papers that were sent to Josephine, I noticed that her husband Stackelberg always referred to with just 'St' that the 'St'… I used to misread it as an 'A' and then that gave me the idea… Hey, this might not be 'A,' this might've been a mistake by the copyist and it really was Auf diese Art mit Stackleberg everything is going to ruin.
MALTZ: And so you, in doing your research into this theory, found examples in Beethoven's hand where he writes both an 'A' and an 'St' – in Beethoven's hand – so that we have definitive proof. And you found something curious about this ‘St’
STEBLIN: His 'St' looks very much like an 'A' and Gräffer, who was the copyist, if he just saw this one initial cipher? Well… because 'St' is kind of unusual and 'A' is much more common. He just copied it as an 'A' but I think it really was 'St'
MALTZ: And it sends people down the wrong track for hundreds of years.
STEBLIN: Yeah. [Laughter]
An overheard confession in Baden [17:57]
MALTZ: We're skipping forward now, there was another cryptic comment that has stumped Beethoven researchers for years. It comes from Fanny Giannatasio del Rio in September of 1816 when she wrote down a snippet of a conversation she overheard between Beethoven and her father on a walk in Baden. What is your view about this?
STEBLIN: Yes. I mean her comment was that she overheard Beethoven's… well her father had asked Beethoven had he never met a woman that he would want to marry. And Beethoven had said ‘Yes, five years ago. [I] had gotten to know,’ he used the word kennen, ‘gotten to know a woman.’
Well, we know that Beethoven knew Josephine since 1799 so five years before would disqualify her. But, I decided to look at the problem again from a new angle and to look at that word kennen and thought, okay, if you view it in the biblical sense of to know a woman, sleep with her. Then it fits Josephine.
MALTZ: And so your theory or… you're saying that Fanny Giannatasio del Rio is simply substituting the other German verb, kennenlernen, which is just to get to know.
STEBLIN: Well, she does admit that she was at some distance and was trying to listen in onto this conversation. And, she found on Beethoven's desk something that said, ‘my heart overflows at the sight of beautiful nature, although without her,’ in other words, he must have been walking in nature, in Baden, with his Beloved earlier.
MALTZ: It would seem to suggest that four years later it was still and has only ever been this one woman. You presented evidence that places Josephine in Baden around this time as well?
STEBLIN: Yes. First of all, there are the memoirs of her oldest son, Fritz, who he started writing when he was 20 years old to his 15-year-old bride. And he talks about how they had a wonderful summer 1816 in Baden and, Marie-Elisabeth Tellenbach had already found in the spa lists, Josephine's entry later that summer.
But knowing Fritz had said end of April that they'd already gotten to Baden, there I found – in an earlier list – Josephine. I should say, had been hiding under an assumed name, Meiersfeld, but it was a hyphenated Deym-Meiersfeld. There, it was. Now, we have proof that Josephine was in Baden for weeks.
Was Beethoven a father? [21:09]
MALTZ: This is where the story gets particularly interesting to me and I think to anybody who has an interest in this subject is that there is more to this encounter on July 3rd in Prague in 1812, that Beethoven had with Josephine. And, in fact, you give evidence that Josephine gave birth to Beethoven's child. So why, given this, would she have returned to her husband?
STEBLIN: Well, I mean, what a scandal. I mean she… I know that in 1811, a year before the Immortal Beloved letter, she, was not sleeping with her husband anymore. Because, there are letters where she instructed the setup of their bedrooms when she was going to go to that estate in Moravia that they'd bought and she even wanted a maid sleeping between the two bedrooms.
So all of a sudden, after this night with Beethoven, she probably suspects, uh-oh what do I do if I am pregnant? Because she was still fertile, and all of her other earlier six children were conceived immediately after she'd slept with her first husband and then her second husband.
And so I think what happened is that instead of going on to Karlsbad – as she had originally planned – and that's why in Beethoven's letter you have that statement, ‘We will probably see each other in K.’ But no, I think that she then sent him a letter saying, ‘Oh, I have to change my plans. I'm going back to Vienna.’ And so that's why he never sent the letter.
And so what did she have to do but try to fix her marriage and, I think from the memoirs of her son, Fritz, you see what efforts she went to to be the loving wife. She even applied for a pass to go to Italy with him and the children and so on. And then exactly nine months after the letter to the Immortal Beloved, you have her seventh child born, Minona.
MALTZ: And this would explain how in the fall, Beethoven returning to Vienna, sees a happily-married Josephine with Stackelberg and writes, “Auf diese Art mit 'St' geht alles zu Grunde.”
STEBLIN: That's right. And there's some other passages in his diary where around the birth of Minona where he says, ‘Oh, I will have to leave Vienna.’
Why? I mean, maybe he thought there'd be this scandal about the paternity or he wanted to undertake a Große Handlung or something. And I think that was to declare his paternity, but instead he didn't want to cause a scandal for Josephine.
And so it's exactly at that point that he lays claim to his nephew, even though Karl's father was still alive and wouldn't die for another few years. But because Beethoven couldn't lay claim to his own child, he then took over this nephew. And so there were deep psychological reasons for him doing that.
Minona [24:00]
MALTZ: What do we know about Minona?
STEBLIN: Well the name comes from Ossian, that Gaelic Bard, and appears in Goethe Sorrows of Young Werther, and is the daughter of a musician.
And the names that Josephine gave to her children all have symbolic meaning. And I think this name, Minona, as the daughter of a musician is of significance.
And, Therese, in her memoirs talks about Minona as being different from the other children, being very stark, strong in her personality so much that we called her ‘the governess.’
And she also showed the most genius among the children. And, what I'm doing right now is to search further in the papers of the Brunsvik family for letters that Minona, herself, wrote or comments about her. And what I have found is that she was musical and that they were hoping that she could make a living as a musician.
MALTZ: Right. And there's this snippet from the conversation book. Was it 1819 or 1820, I believe… where somebody writes to Beethoven about this musical child.
STEBLIN: This was about the time when Stackelberg brought his three daughters, including this Minona, back to Vienna and Therese says Minona was six years old. So this was late 1819 and, exactly at that point in Beethoven's conversation books, someone is asking him and writing out, ‘You talk so much about the woman that her husband is going to suspect that the child among his children that has musical talent is your child.’ I mean this is great proof.
DNA Test [25:58]
MALTZ: You mentioned in one of your articles that Minona is buried in Vienna's Central Cemetery. Beethoven is buried there as well, of course. What are your thoughts about a DNA test?
STEBLIN: Years ago, a Berlin film crew wanted to make a film with me holding a shovel at her grave. And I had heard that the grave site was up for sale. And, of course, what would happen to the bones? They'd be gone forever.
So, I contacted the health agency, the Gesundheitsamt – they're responsible for grave sites and found out what I could. And just recently the business manager of the Beethoven House in Bonn, Malte Böcker, wanted to have all of my correspondence with this Gesundheitsamt because, in the end, it was sort of like… well, who's going to pay for this?
Minona’s gravesite in Vienna
I mean, I can't afford to pay to have her bones, her remains exhumed. And then they said, pietätlos, there's no piety because you'd have to exhume Beethoven as well to make a study.
And then other people told me it's not possible to determine fatherhood from such old bones but, Malte Böcker, the business head at the Beethoven House in Bonn, wrote me just recently an email saying, ‘I'd like to let you know that I have secured Minona's gravesite and nothing will happen to her bones.’
And what I've been doing recently is watching all these YouTube stories. Where do I come from? And these DNA studies… well, if 50% of Minona's bones come from Estonia, well then Stackelberg is the father, but if 50% come from Bonn, well then that would prove it. So who knows?
I mean, DNA studies are improving. As I say, you can't at this point determine fatherhood, but maybe there are other ways.
MALTZ: Guess we’ll have to see.
Dr. Steblin, I would like to thank you personally for your research. Beethoven is the reason why I fell in love with music. And your research sheds light on a side of Beethoven that is quite opposite to the fiery personality we often think of – a Beethoven who wanted to love and be loved.
So thank you for joining me today.
STEBLIN: It was a pleasure.
Beethoven’s Immortal Beloved letter
* Translation via Letters of Note
6 July, morning
My angel, my all, my own self — only a few words today, and that too with pencil (with yours) — only till tomorrow is my lodging definitely fixed. What abominable waste of time in such things — why this deep grief, where necessity speaks?
Can our love persist otherwise than through sacrifices, than by not demanding everything? Canst thou change it, that thou are not entirely mine, I not entirely thine? Oh, God, look into beautiful Nature and compose your mind to the inevitable. Love demands everything and is quite right, so it is for me with you, for you with me — only you forget so easily, that I must live for you and for me — were we quite united, you would notice this painful feeling as little as I should . . .
. . . We shall probably soon meet, even today I cannot communicate my remarks to you, which during these days I made about my life — were our hearts close together, I should probably not make any such remarks. My bosom is full, to tell you much — there are moments when I find that speech is nothing at all. Brighten up — remain my true and only treasure, my all, as I to you. The rest the gods must send, what must be for us and shall.
Your faithful
Ludwig
Monday evening, 6 July
You suffer, you, my dearest creature. Just now I perceive that letters must be posted first thing early. Mondays — Thursdays — the only days, when the post goes from here to K. You suffer — oh! Where I am, you are with me, with me and you, I shall arrange that I may live with you. What a life!
So! Without you — pursued by the kindness of the people here and there, whom I mean — to desire to earn just as little as they earn — humility of man towards men — it pains me — and when I regard myself in connection with the Universe, what I am, and what he is — whom one calls the greatest — and yet — there lies herein again the godlike of man. I weep when I think you will probably only receive on Saturday the first news from me — as you too love — yet I love you stronger — but never hide yourself from me. Good night — as I am taking the waters, I must go to bed. Oh God — so near! so far! Is it not a real building of heaven, our Love — but as firm, too, as the citadel of heaven.
Good morning, on 7 July
Even in bed my ideas yearn towards you, my Immortal Beloved, here and there joyfully, then again sadly, awaiting from Fate, whether it will listen to us. I can only live, either altogether with you or not at all. Yes, I have determined to wander about for so long far away, until I can fly into your arms and call myself quite at home with you, can send my soul enveloped by yours into the realm of spirits — yes, I regret, it must be. You will get over it all the more as you know my faithfulness to you; never another one can own my heart, never — never! O God, why must one go away from what one loves so, and yet my life in W. as it is now is a miserable life. Your love made me the happiest and unhappiest at the same time. At my actual age I should need some continuity, sameness of life — can that exist under our circumstances? Angel, I just hear that the post goes out every day — and must close therefore, so that you get the L. at once. Be calm — love me — today — yesterday.
What longing in tears for you — You — my Life — my All — farewell. Oh, go on loving me — never doubt the faithfullest heart
Of your beloved
L
Ever thine.
Ever mine.
Ever ours.