Beethoven and His "Immortal Beloved" Josephine Brunsvik
Her Fate and the Influence on Beethoven's uvre
By
Marie-Elisabeth Tellenbach
Translated by
John E Klapproth
Beethoven and His "Immortal Beloved" Josephine Brunsvik
Her Fate and the Influence on Beethoven's uvre
by
Marie-Elisabeth Tellenbach.
Title of the original German edition:
BEETHOVEN UND SEINE UNSTERBLICHE GELIEBTE JOSEPHINE BRUNSWICK Ihr Schicksal und der Einflu auf Beethovens Werk
1983 Atlantis Musikbuch-Verlag AG, Zrich
English language edition:
2014 John E Klapproth
All Rights Reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1499344417
ISBN-10: 1499344414
Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN): 2014909931
Cover Design: Andrea M Jaretzki
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, North Charleston, SC. Printed by CreateSpace, an Amazon.com Company, Charleston, SC, U.S.A.; released on 2 July 2014. Available on Kindle and online stores.
Content
Foreword .................................................................................... 5Introduction ................................................................................ 7The Attitude of the Brunsvik Family and its Impact on the Beethoven Biography ................................................................. 12
I. The Behavior of the Brunsvik Siblings and its Influence on Schindler's
Biography ..................................................................................................... 12 II. Confusion in the Later Beethoven Biography .................................................. 20 III. Modern Opinions ............................................................................................ 30
Agnosticism and "Fact Research" Alleged Sexual DeviancyThe Dialectically Determined Beethoven Semantic Construction ......... 30Testimonies of the Word ............................................................ 46 IV. Eros and Passion in Stendhal's Theory of Crystallization ................................ 46 V. Josephine Leonore ........................................................................................ 53 VI. The Pressure by the Brunsvik Family and the Separation ............................... 65 VII. On the Portraits of Women in Beethoven's Possession ................................ 75 VIII. Josephine's Second Marriage ....................................................................... 84 IX. Beethoven's Relationships to Women and their Expression in his Letters ..... 96 X. The Summer of 1812 ...................................................................................... 105 XI. Arria .............................................................................................................. 117 XII. High Glory Deep Humiliation .................................................................... 129 XIII. Encounters in the Years 1815 and 1816 ..................................................... 140 XIV. Therese Brunsvik's Book Lending Notes ..................................................... 152 XV. After the Final Separation ............................................................................ 163 XVI. "I know no duty more sacred" ................................................................. 174 XVII. Josephine's Last Years and her Death ........................................................ 185 XVIII. The Aftermath .......................................................................................... 201 Traces in the Music ................................................................... 206 XIX. Tacit Dedications and the Brunsvik Sonatas ............................................... 206 XX. "Inter Lacrimas et Luctum " .......................................................................... 213
XXI. Fantasies of Farewell, Absence, and Reunion, and the "
Quartettoserioso " ...................................................................................................... 219
XXII. The Compositions of 1812, full of Happiness, and the "
Tempo diMenuetto " .................................................................................................. 229 XXIII. From Hope to Resignation ........................................................................ 240 XXIV. The Late Works ......................................................................................... 258 XXV. The Late Sonata in A Flat Major and its Omitted Dedication .................... 263 XXVI. Conclusion ................................................................................................ 275
Epilogue ................................................................................... 277Appendix .................................................................................. 279 Letters by Beethoven to Women ....................................................................... 279 1.) The Letter from 6 and 7 July 1812 ............................................................ 2792.) To Josephine Countess Deym .................................................................... 2813.) To Therese Malfatti .................................................................................. 2814.) To Bettina Brentano ................................................................................. 2825.) To Amalie Sebald ...................................................................................... 2836.) To Antonie Brentano ................................................................................. 2837.) To Anna Marie Countess Erddy ............................................................... 2838.) To Dorothea Baroness von Ertmann ......................................................... 284 To the Faraway Beloved ..................................................................................... 284 About the Conversation Books .......................................................................... 287 On Beethoven's Diary from 1812 to 1818 .......................................................... 290 "Prostitution" A Critical Discussion ................................................................. 294 Literature ................................................................................. 297Name Index .............................................................................. 307
Foreword
Only rarely led my uncle Hans Conrad Bodmer (1891-1956) someone into the two not very large rooms of his cozy old house in the Brengasse in Zurich, where he kept his Beethoven collection, which he then bequeathed in his will to the Beethoven-Archiv in Bonn. In the first of the two rooms was Beethoven's desk, which had last belonged to Stefan Zweig, and H. C. Bodmer had tried to return it to the state it was in 1827 as accurately as possible, with the help of authentic objects and photocopies. With radiant joy, he pulled out a drawer, and there was the copy of the Letter from 6 and 7 July to the Immortal Beloved, which as I know now Beethoven must have written in 1812. The original manuscripts of the collection, which H. C. Bodmer for the most part had gathered already before the Second World War, including more than 400 letters by Beethoven, the Waldstein Sonata op. 53, the Sonata in F sharp major op. 78, sheets from the score of the Ninth, several cadenzas for the First, Second and Fourth Piano Concertos, sketchbooks and sketches with preparatory notes for the Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and the
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