Ludwig van Beethoven (December 17, 1770–March 26, 1827) endures as one of the most influential and beloved composers of all time.

Whenever I find myself with a sunken heart, I promptly put his Ninth Symphony on repeat. It’s only befitting that a man of such extraordinary capacity to elevate the soul with beauty should be the author of some of the most breathtaking love letters of all time.

Beethoven never married, but in his early forties he fell deeply in love with a mysterious woman who remains known only as ‘immortal beloved’

This was the eternally enchanting term of endearment by which the great composer addressed the mystery lady in his letters.

Discovered in Beethoven’s bedside table shortly after his death in 1827, these intimate letters to ‘meine unsterbliche Geliebte’, ‘my immortal beloved’ have been a source of speculation for the past two centuries.

They have simultaneously shed light on who Beethoven was as a man and raised questions about his personal relationships when he was at the height of his creative powers. In the first one, penned on Sunday, July 5, 1812, Beethoven writes:

“My angel, my very self. Why this profound sorrow, when necessity speaks, can our love endure without sacrifices, without our demanding everything from one another; can you alter the fact that you are not wholly mine, that I am not wholly yours?

“Dear God, look at Nature in all her beauty and set your heart at rest about what must be. Love demands all, and rightly so

No doubt we shall meet soon; and today also time fails me to tell you of the thoughts which during these last few days I have been revolving about my life.

“If our hearts were always closely united, I would certainly entertain no such thoughts. My heart overflows with a longing to tell you so many things

“Oh, there are moments when I find that speech is quite inadequate. Be cheerful and be for ever my faithful, my only sweetheart, my all, as I am yours. The gods must send us everything else, whatever must and shall be our fate. Your faithful Ludwig.”

By the following evening, Beethoven is a seething cauldron of longing, that most intoxicating and disorienting of emotions:

“What a life!!!! as it is now. Without you, pursued by the kindness of people here and there, a kindness that I think, that I wish to deserve just as little as I deserve it, man’s homage to man, that pains me

“And when I consider myself in the setting of the universe, what am I and what is that man, whom one calls the greatest of men, and yet, on the other hand therein lies the divine element in man. However much you love me, my love for you is even greater, but never conceal yourself from me. Good night.

By the morning of July 7, his longing plummets into despair: “Even when I am in bed my thoughts rush to you, my immortal beloved, now and then joyfully, then again sadly, waiting to know whether Fate will hear our prayer.

“To face life, I must liv altogether with you or never see you. Oh God, why must one be separated from her who is so dear. Yet my life in Vienna at present is a miserable life. Your love has made me both the happiest and unhappiest of mortals…

“Be calm; for only by calmly considering our lives can we achieve our purpose to live together. Be calm, love me, today, yesterday, what tearful longing for you. For you, you, my life, my all, all good wishes to you.

“Oh, do continue to love me, never misjudge your lover’s most faithful heart. every yours, every mine, ever ours.”

More than a dozen ‘Immortal Beloved’ candidates have been proposed by musicologists. I and others believe Beethoven’s ‘Immortal Beloved’ was the Countess Josephine von Brunswick. Josephine was a beautiful young Hungarian aristocrat who the composer first met in 1799, shortly before her marriage to Count von Deym.

After the Count died in 1804, the countess’s relationship with Beethoven increasingly intensified. Sadly, it seems that the countess’s social status and parental obligations prevented her from marrying Beethoven, a suitor deemed unsuitable by her family (her hovering and matriarchal mother, in particular). MICHAEL WALSH. PLEASE EXTEND OUR REACH BY SHARING OUR STORIES

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