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Updated: May 13, 2025
Fraulein Tenger wrote her book in her old age when she had lost her diaries, but enough of her reminiscences remain to prove Thayer's ingenious guesses correct. Thérèse von Brunswick was Beethoven's "Immortal Beloved," and the picture found with the letter was her portrait.
When Fräulein Tenger had first met the countess as a child she had been asked to go every year on March 27th and lay a wreath of immortelles on Beethoven's grave. The acquaintance continued, and they met again at long intervals till the countess's death in 1861.
As for Thérèse, she, too, had kept a copy of this letter, and as she told Fräulein Tenger: "I have read it so often that I know it by heart like a poem and was it not a beautiful poem? I can only humbly say to myself, 'That man loved thee, and thank God for it."
As she herself told Fräulein Tenger, "The word that parted us was not spoken by me, but by him. I was terribly frightened, turned deadly pale, and trembled." Even after this, the demon in him might have been exorcised, but Thérèse had grown afraid of the lightnings of his wrath, and fear outweighed love in the girl's heart.
The book bears every sign of telling the truth, as it makes no effort at the charms of fiction. It is by Miriam Tenger, who claims to have known the Countess Thérèse well for many years, and who describes the adoration with which her friends regarded her, the painter Peter von Cornelius calling her "the most remarkable woman I have ever known."
He told Fräulein Tenger the story of an early encounter of Thérèse and Beethoven. She was a pupil who felt for him that mingled love and terror he instilled in women. One bitterly cold and stormy day he came to give the young countess her lesson; she was especially eager to please him, but grew so anxious that her playing went all askew. He was under the obsession of one of his savageries.
Through this act of devotion Miriam Tenger seemed to become to the Countess a tie that stretched back to her past, and though they saw each other only at long intervals, Miriam's presence awakened anew the old memories in the Countess's heart, and from her she heard piecemeal, and with pauses of years between, the story of hers and Beethoven's romance. Therese was the daughter of a noble house.
Some years after the composer's death, Countess Therese Brunswick conceived a great liking for a young girl, Miriam Tenger, whom she had taken under her care for a short period, until a suitable school was selected for her in Vienna. When the time for parting came, Miriam burst into tears and clung to the Countess's hand. "Child! Child!" exclaimed the lady, "do you really love me so deeply?"
But as the fur would be turned inwards, that wouldn't matter so much. The bunda was quite wearable: there was just a bad tear in the leather close to the pocket, which might show and which must be mended. Elsa threaded her needle, and began to hum her favourite song under her breath: "Nincsen annyi tenger csillag az égen Mint a hányszor vagy eszembe te nékem."
Afterward, I believe, he heard of Miriam Tenger, entered into correspondence with her, and the letters doubtless will be found among his papers; but he did not live to make use of the information. One of the reasons why the identity of the recipient of Beethoven's letter remained so long unknown was that he did not address her by name. The letter begins: "My angel, my all, myself!"
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