“THE IMMORTAL BELOVED”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 880, 25 January 1930, Page 18

“THE IMMORTAL BELOVED”

HEN Vienna —and the world—were celebrating the centenary of (he great Beethoven’s death two years ago, every phase of his life was reviewed, yet around the inner choice of his heart there remained a veil of mystery. Who was Beethoven’s “Immortal Beloved”? Who was the woman to whom he addressed the three famous letters, bearing on date, no address, which are today museum relics? In whose arms did he long to cradle his tired head that wild March morning when Death raised his baton and a tenderly whispered “Unsterblich Geliebte” (“Immortal Beloved”) came from the master’s lips? The answer to this oft-repeated question, which has remained a secret for more than a century since Beethoven’s death, supposedly locked away with the immortal dust in the shrine at. Vienna, now belongs to the world. THE COUNTESS THERESA Time has a way of revealing the truth; sometimes through a package of old letters, sometimes through crumbling documents, sometimes through lips long sealed by a promise. It was through this last medium that time has chosen to establish the Identity of Beethoven's “Immortal Beloved” as the Countess Theresa von Brunswick. Her name, together with those of several others, has always been indissolubly associated with that of the great musician. But it was not until Marie Edle von Hrussoczy, who -was virtually an adopted daughter of the Countess and is now an old woman, chose to break her long silence and relate valuable reminiscences of the woman who loved and was beloved by Beethoven, that all doubt as to the ruling passion of his life was dispelled. As a little girl, Marie sat at the feet of the woman, who -was then removed from the world and living “only for the good she might do for others,” and heard from her lips one of the world’s immortal romances. Today she feels that it belongs to the world, as does the romance of Dante and his Beatrice, of Petrarch and his Laura; women who would never have been known except for the greatness of the one who sought them out; yet, nevertheless, women to whom it was given the great privilege of ministering to genius. In a little town not far from Vienna an old white-haired woman has consulted her diary and refreshed her memory on the days when she heard of Beethoven’s romance from the lips of the Countess. In 1794, when the Countess Theresa was but 15 years old, she took pianoforte lessons from Beethoven, who was a friend and protege of her elder brother, Count Franz. One winter’s day the master arrived and, more brooding and savage than usual, commanded her to play her sonata. Tremblingly the young girl played it very badly. Whereupon the master sprang up and rushed out of doors and down the street. The girl flew after him. Her mother, indignant that a countess should be seen running down the street after a lowly music master, brought her back and for punishment confined her to her room all day. A PREDESTINED COMPANION Some ten years later they came together again, through the friendship of Count Franz and the musician. Beethoven afterward said to a friend that he instantly recognised the predestined companion of his solitude and she gave him the love which he carried to his grave. In the month of May, 1806, the countess and Beethoven became engaged on condition that the marriage wait until Beethoven should have obtained a “situation worthy of her station.” No one knows, no cne will ever know, just why the engagement was broken. Upon this subject the countess never spoke at length. It may have been the master’s whirlwind passions chafing at the long delay; it may have been his realisation of the incongruity of a marriage between himself—poor and driven by a madness for creation—and the daughter of a noble house. That it was not that he ceased to love her is borne out in succeeding history. And it was not the fault of Theresa —of this she assured her young confidante: “Know this, that the word of separation was not spoke by me.” After Beethoven’s death the countess placed a cluster of immortelles in Marie’s hands and bade her take them to Beethoven’s tomb. While there the girl met a friend of the composer’s, who asked who sent the flowers. When she told him ’he turned away, murmuring: “Ah, yes, immortelles are fit for her only!” Marie went home and related her story to the countess. The countess, then an old lady, arose and led her into the next room and said: “Come, I will show you the jewels of the once-happy Theresa.” Then she raised the lid of a silver casket and disclosed a bunch of withered immortelles and a discoloured bit of paper upon which, was was written, “The immortal lover to his immortal beloved —Ludwig.” “Dear child, you wi l keep all of this a secret to yourself,” continued the countess. “A shrug of the shoulders and a pitying smile are all that society will give to such things. The three letters about which so nuch has been asked were returned by me to Ludwig, the immortelles I kept. They shall be sewn in a little white cushion and placed beneath my head when they lay me in the coffin.”

Who Was Mysterious Unknown Who was BeetHoven's I Inspiration? . „ . Lips Long Sealed By Promise Now Reveal The Secret . . . Strange that she who held the answer, to a question so often asked by the world should have seen fit to withhold it so many years, but when one remembers the trust placed in Marie by the countess it is not surprising that she has remained silent almost to -the day of her death. Some one may doubt the story of Beethoven's great love, but Maries evidence is generously backed up byother proof. “WHO ARE YOU?” Many years ago the great music critic IVlndy wrote: “Who are you, the great ’lmmortal Beloved,’ of whom so much has been said? Are you the kind Alalie Sebald? You, seductive Giulietta Guiceiardi; you, the brilliant Gherardi? You. Countess Babette. the homely beauty to whom were dedicated the Variations, Opus 34, and the first piano concerto; you, ‘dear Cecilie Eorothea’? You, Lady of the Jegersee? You, charming Marie Bigot, of France, who read for the first time the manuscript of the ’Appassionata,’ drenched by the tempest, those immortal pages? You, Marie Pachler-Koschak, autumnal passion whom the master constituted ‘true guardianship of his spirit.’? Was it you, impish Bettina? Was it you, Magdalena Willman, who sang out your heart to him; or was it, was it not, you, Theresa von Brunswick, about whom he said: ‘When 1 think of her my heart beats as wildly as the day I first saw her!’?” According to all of Beethoven’s biographers he was a being eminently chaste and of deep Christian convictions and could not conceive love otherwise than according to Biblical commandments —In marriage. He even scolded Mozart for having devoted his talents to a description of the illicit loves of Don Juan. Although there was in Beethoven's life no romantic liaison, no skulking passion, his was a soul literally ravaged by feminine charm, by violent passions suffered for women he could not wed. His every w ork seemed to depend to a certain degree upon the sympathy and companionship of a woman, yet in his absolute terror of immorality he could only love the purest, and it is this type that inspired many of his best works. SPIRITUAL CRISES Critics speak of Beethoven’s nine symphonies as they do of the logge of Raphael, of the dramas of Shakespeare or the campaigns of Napoleon —an imperishable assembly, but each one marking a spiritual crisis in the life of the creator. Of these, the fourth, written in the four years that Ludwig and Therese were engaged, has been termed the “Symphony of Love.” Those who claim that the genius of the great composer had no other subject than that of suffering pause to make an exception of this rejoicing canticle of love. Despair born of the knowledge of his approaching deafness, despondency born of the fierce creative forces forever tearing at his soul, sublimity—all of these are reflected in that superb range of composition, while love and happiness peeped through very seldom, save in those years with his “Immortal Beloved.” The letters about which there has been such a storm of surmise are now in the Beethoven Museum at Bonn, his birthplace. They are undated and bear no address and for that reason have been the centre of so much controversy. The Countess, in speaking to her young confidante, Marie, of these letters, now known as the “Immortal Beloved letters,” said: — “It was from Fured, on the Plattensee, that the letter merely dated July 6 was written. It was one of the first he wrote after our engagement and one w r hich I returned w'hen it was all over. After his death I heard it spoken of many times as the ‘immortal love letter.’ ” Two of the treasured letters in the museum at Bonn read: 6th July morning. j “My angel—my all —my second self. How can our love subsist except by sacrifice —by not wishing for everything? Can we help it that I am not wholly yours and you wholly mine?” Monday. evening, July 6. Love me as you will, my love for you is warmer, only never disguise yourself with me. Good night. Is not our love a really heavenly creation, and firm as the vault of heaven itself? Continue to love me and never doubt the faithful love of your Ludwig. "LOVE AND HAPPINESS” It is a significant circumstance that about the period now fixed as that when the letters were written Beethoven wrote in a diary: “Love and love alone is capable of bringing thee lasting happiness—Oh, God, let me have her—-her who will strengthen me in virtue and lawfully be mine!” A friend of Beethoven’s tells the story of coming upon him one day, not long before his death, standing before his piano, upon which lay an unfinished composition, holding to his heart the portrait of a woman and murmuring: “Thou wert so fair, so like an angel!” In answer to his friend’s comment that he seemed less depressed today he replied: "My gtmd angel has been with me all day!” Yet he had never seen Theresa after they parted years before. Poor, distraught, genius, for ever longing for the pure, tranquil love of a wife and for ever alone, for ever dreaming of a home, but with no roof to call his own, poverty compelling him to move 35 cime3 in 30 years. For ever striving to express more fully the divine harmonies within his soul "while the world of sound was shut away from him. Beethoven’s life was cast in a tragic mould from the beginning. He was horn in the picturesque old town of Bonn, Germany, in the house which now houses the Beethoven Museum. Music surrounded his cradle as lid debt and distress. His life ended on the same tragic note. On that wild March morning a storm raged outside the quiet room—a tempestuous requiem to a tempestuous soul. “Applaud, friends, the farce is over!” gasped the dying genius, and then softly, tenderly, a whisper: “Unsterblich Geliebte!” (“immortal Beloved”). In the Beethoven Museum at Bonn there hangs a portrait of the Countess Theresa von Brunswick, a copy of a portrait found in the master's papers. For a century people have gazed upon it and remarked: "Some say she was Beethoven’s ‘lmmortal Beloved,’ and others think not.” -iM