Beethoven, the Brentano Family, and Bettina Brentano

This letter documents the warm feelings that Beethoven continued to feel for the family of Franz and Antonie Brentano long after they had moved back to Frankfurt from Vienna in 1812. According to some sources, Antonie (1780-1869) first met Beethoven at some point in the 1790s while living with her parents in Vienna. In 1806 she married Franz and moved to Frankfurt. Three years later her father became very ill, and she returned to Vienna to spend the last few weeks of his life with him. She remained until 1812 to complete the complicated task of settling his estate. During the years 1810-12, she and her family became close to the composer. Beethoven visited them, attended concerts at their home, played for them, and played with their children. Because she was often ill, Beethoven used to come and improvise for her in her anteroom to, in Antonie’s words, “tell me everything and offer me comfort.” In 1819 Antonie described Beethoven as “guileless, straightforward, wise, and wholely benevolent.”

Beethoven begins the letter by stating that he had sent several of his musical works to them “in order to recall myself to your friendly remembrance, all the members of the Brentano family remain always dear to me, and especially shall I always remember you, my honored friend [Franz], with true respect, I even wish that you may believe how often I have prayed to heaven for the long continuance of your life, so that you long may be a useful and honored head of your family.” Later he writes, “I really very much miss my contacts with you as well as your wife and dear children, for where would I be able to find something similar here in Vienna I therefore seldom go out, for I have always found it impossible to associate with men unless a certain interchange of ideas is possible.” Complicating our understanding of the letter is the fact that Antonie is one of the leading contenders as the solution to the riddle of the “Immortal Beloved,” with whom Beethoven was in love in 1812. If she was the Immortal Beloved, Beethoven’s affectionate words about the entire family were not certainly not “guileless,” “straightforward,” or “wholely benevolent.”

Treasure 18

 

Manuscript Beethoven Letter to Franz Brentano from February 15, 1817

Gift of Ira F. Brilliant, 2003

Complete English translation
See also entry with more details and downloadable image in the Beethoven Gateway

Also on display:

First edition of Dedié à Spontini, a collection of seven songs by Bettina (Brentano) Arnim, privately published in Berlin for the composer, 1842

Gift of Ted Walden, 2006
View entire score in the Beethoven Gateway

Autograph note in English by Bettina Brentano, undated

Transcription: “Breife von Beethoven  an Bettina Brentano  be good to me and help for the  monument  to make read my  book”

Gift of the American Beethoven Society, 2000
See entry with more details and downloadable image in the Beethoven Gateway