Whowasthegenius’slostlove?
Enjoys a fictionalised foray into the 250 years of music’s man of the moment. AhronBregman delights in some informed optimism
Immortal
By Jessica Duchen
Unbound, £10.99
Who was the Unsterbliche Geliebte, the “Immortal Beloved” to whomLudwig Van Beethoven addressed the lengthy, passionate but evidently unsent letter found among his private effects following his death in 1827, and which is highlighted in many of the current plethora of words marking next week’s celebration of Beethoven’s 250th birthday? There are several possible candidates: women with whom this most gifted and emotional of men may have developed a romantic but ultimately unfulfilled relationship over the course of a turbulent life.
Jessica Duchen, best known as one of our leading music critics, has investigated the whole story and, rather than adding to the wealth of historical and musical analysis, has imaginatively used the material for a novel, which is largely based on historically documented events and personalities. In the course of a vivid narrative, Duchen introduces many people whom Beethoven knew and describes his latest compositions, all of this amid countless venues in Vienna and across Central Europe. And what of this restless genius’s “Immortal Beloved”? Did she really exist? If so, who was she?
Immortal is composed of a collection of largely autobiographical letters supposedly penned in 1859 by the strong, nearly 85-year-old, independent-minded Hungarian Countess and educationist, Therese Brunsvik — “Tesi” — about the legendary composer whom she had known well. Her letters, sent to one of her nieces, were prompted by a recent visit from a woman who had said she was thinking of writing a book about Beethoven and his Immortal Beloved.
This made Tesi determined to put everything she remembered down on paper.
The letters include material not only about her intimate personal acquaintance with Beethoven (whom she calls “Luigi”) but also that of her beautifulyet-troubled younger sister Josephine, or “Pepi”. Tesi and Pepi first met Beethoven in 1798, when he became their piano teacher, and remained ever closer to him until his death nearly 30 years later. Tesi writes of the extended Brunsvik family, of Pepi’s various husbands, lovers and children (and the sisters’ forbiddingly moralistic mother).
There are also accounts of the great and the good of Habsburg Vienna; the family homes in Hungary; and the threatening clouds flowing from the military movements across Europe under the command of Napoleon, a man Beethoven once revered but came to revile. In 1814, following Napoleon’s initial defeat, Tesi attends the première of Beethoven’s revised version of his only opera, Fidelio, where she encounters, among others, a shy teenager named Franz Schubert.
Duchen (or Tesi) touches on everything from the most broadly historical to the most private and intimate — including the likelihood that the biological father of Pepi’s daughter Minona was her great love, Ludwig Van Beethoven. Shortly before the end of the novel, Duchen describes a visit to the Countess by her niece, the now 46-year-old Minona, who is appalled at the idea that she was “illegitimate”. But the book doesn’t quite end there. You’ll need to read on…
Duchen introduces many people whom Beethoven knew and describes his latest compositions