Editing Ludwig van Beethoven (section)

====The Immortal Beloved====
[[File:Antonie Brentano3.jpg|thumb|An 1808 portrait of [[Antonie Brentano]] by [[Joseph Karl Stieler]]]]
While Beethoven was at Teplitz in 1812, he wrote a ten-page love letter to his "[[Immortal Beloved]]", which he never sent to its addressee.{{sfn|Brandenburg|1996|p=582}} The identity of the intended recipient was long a subject of debate, although the musicologist [[Maynard Solomon]] has argued that the intended recipient was [[Antonie Brentano]]; other candidates included Julie Guicciardi, [[Therese Malfatti]] and Josephine Brunsvik.{{sfn|Cooper|1996|p=107}}{{refn|Solomon sets out his case in detail in his biography of Beethoven.{{sfn|Solomon|1998|pp=223–231}}|group=n}}

All of these had been regarded by Beethoven as possible soulmates during his first decade in Vienna. Guicciardi, although she flirted with Beethoven, never had any serious interest in him and married [[Wenzel Robert von Gallenberg]] in November 1803. (Beethoven insisted to his later secretary and biographer, [[Anton Schindler]], that Guicciardi had "sought me out, crying, but I scorned her".){{sfn|Solomon|1998|pp=196–197}} Josephine had, since Beethoven's initial infatuation with her, married the elderly Count Joseph Deym, who died in 1804. Beethoven began to visit her and commenced a passionate correspondence. Initially, he accepted that Josephine could not love him, but he continued to address himself to her even after she had moved to Budapest, finally demonstrating that he had got the message in his last letter to her of 1807: "I thank you for wishing still to appear as if I were not altogether banished from your memory".{{sfn|Solomon|1998|pp=197–199}} Malfatti was the niece of Beethoven's doctor, and he had proposed to her in 1810. He was 40, and she was 19. The proposal was rejected.{{sfn|Solomon|1998|p=196}} She is now remembered as the possible recipient of the piano [[Bagatelle (music)|bagatelle]] known as "[[Für Elise]]".{{sfn|Cooper|1996|p=20}}{{refn|The manuscript (now lost) was found in Therese Malfatti's papers after her death by Beethoven's early biographer [[Ludwig Nohl]]. It has been suggested that Nohl misread the title, which may have been ''Für Therese''.{{sfn|Thayer|1967a|p=502}}|group=n}}

Antonie (Toni) Brentano (née von Birkenstock), ten years younger than Beethoven, was the wife of {{ill|Franz Dominicus Brentano|de}}, the half-brother of [[Bettina Brentano]], who provided Beethoven's introduction to the family. It would seem that Antonie and Beethoven had an affair during 1811–1812. Antonie left Vienna with her husband in late 1812 and never met with (or apparently corresponded with) Beethoven again, although in her later years, she wrote and spoke fondly of him.{{sfn|Solomon|1998|pp=231–239}} Some speculate that Beethoven was the father of Antonie's son Karl Josef; "the boy, born in 1813 and never seen by the composer, became ill aged four with a condition that limited his movements and mental capacity."<ref>{{Cite news|last=Thorpe|first=Vanessa|date=25 February 2017|title=Did Beethoven's Love for a Married Aristocrat and a Doomed Son Colour His Darkest Work?|url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/feb/26/did-beethovens-love-for-married-aristocrat-and-a-doomed-son-colour-his-darkest-work|access-date=15 June 2021|work=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref>

After 1812 there are no reports of any romantic liaisons of Beethoven's; however, it is clear from his correspondence of the period and, later, from the conversation books, that he occasionally had sex with prostitutes.{{sfn|Solomon|1998|pp= 284, 339–340}}