Ludwig van Beethoven
1770–1827
Ludwig van Beethoven revolutionized music and moved it on from the realm of aristocratic patronage – he was one of the first composers to rely on earnings rather than assorted rich benefactors for his living. His combative nature is shown by the dedication of his Third Symphony; originally it was to Napoleon, an almost exact contemporary and sometime hero, but then Napoleon declared himself Emperor, which so enraged Beethoven that he dedicated it instead to 'the memory of a great man'.
Beethoven’s life was blighted by his increasing deafness – an unimaginably terrible affliction for a composer of his genius, and one which led him to the brink of suicide. He was by all accounts difficult, tortured, depressed and irascible – hardly surprising in the circumstances. He never married, although did fall deeply in love more than once, usually with one of his aristocratic and unattainable pupils.
Three passionate unsent love letters were found among Beethoven’s papers after his death, addressed to his ‘Immortal Beloved’. There was no year on the letters, and the identity of the ‘Immortal Beloved’ has not been conclusively established, although the most likely candidate is thought to be Antonie Brentano (1780–1869), a Viennese woman married to a Frankfurt merchant.
To ‘Immortal Beloved’, 6 July, morning
My angel, my all, my own self – only a few words to-day, and that too with pencil (with yours) – only till to-morrow is my lodging definitely fixed. What abominable waste of time in such things – why this deep grief, where necessity speaks?
Can our love persist otherwise than through sacrifices, than by not demanding everything? Canst thou change it, that thou are not entirely mine, I not entirely thine? Oh, God, look into beautiful Nature and compose your mind to the inevitable. Love demands everything and is quite right, so it is for me with you, for you with me – only you forget so easily, that I must live for you and for me – were we quite united, you would notice this painful feeling as little as I should . . .
. . . We shall probably soon meet, even to-day I cannot communicate my remarks to you, which during these days I made about my life – were our hearts close together, I should probably not make any such remarks. My bosom is full, to tell you much – there are moments when I find that speech is nothing at all. Brighten up – remain my true and only treasure, my all, as I to you. The rest the gods must send, what must be for us and shall.
Your faithful
Ludwig
Monday evening, 6 July
You suffer, you, my dearest creature. Just now I perceive that letters must be posted first thing early. Mondays – Thursdays – the only days, when the post goes from here to K. You suffer – oh! Where I am, you are with me, with me and you, I shall arrange that I may live with you. What a life!
So! Without you – pursued by the kindness of the people here and there, whom I mean – to desire to earn just as little as they earn – humility of man towards men – it pains me – and when I regard myself in connection with the Universe, what I am, and what he is – whom one calls the greatest – and yet – there lies herein again the godlike of man. I weep when I think you will probably only receive on Saturday the first news from me – as you too love – yet I love you stronger – but never hide yourself from me. Good night – as I am taking the waters, I must go to bed. Oh God – so near! so far! Is it not a real building of heaven, our Love – but as firm, too, as the citadel of heaven.
Good morning, on 7 July
Even in bed my ideas yearn towards you, my Immortal Beloved, here and there joyfully, then again sadly, awaiting from Fate, whether it will listen to us. I can only live, either altogether with you or not at all. Yes, I have determined to wander about for so long far away, until I can fly into your arms and call myself quite at home with you, can send my soul enveloped by yours into the realm of spirits – yes, I regret, it must be. You will get over it all the more as you know my faithfulness to you; never another one can own my heart, never – never! O God, why must one go away from what one loves so, and yet my life in W. as it is now is a miserable life. Your love made me the happiest and unhappiest at the same time. At my actual age I should need some continuity, sameness of life – can that exist under our circumstances? Angel, I just hear that the post goes out every day – and must close therefore, so that you get the L. at once. Be calm – love me – to-day – yesterday.
What longing in tears for you – You – my Life – my All – farewell. Oh, go on loving me – never doubt the faithfullest heart
Of your beloved
L
Ever thine.
Ever mine.
Ever ours.
Lord Byron
1788–1824
‘Byronic’ has become shorthand for a particular type of romantic hero – pale, dark-haired, hollowcheeked, cruel, reckless, irresistible to many women and therefore a source of deep irritation to the better behaved and more reliable sort of man so often and so inexplicably overlooked. Byron’s behaviour, and his poetry, scandalized large parts of Europe to the extent that in 1924, a hundred years after his death, a petition for a memorial to him in Westminster Abbey was refused by the dean, whose opinion it was that ‘Byron, partly by his openly dissolute life and partly by the influence of his licentious verse, earned a world-wide reputation for immorality among English-speaking people’.
Of the many entanglements of Byron’s life, one of the most notorious was with the married Lady Caroline Lamb; in July 1813, it was rumoured that following a quarrel with him at a party, she tried to stab herself first with a knife, then with a broken glass. Eventually, she withdrew to Ireland, and the letter that follows was written to her there.
To Lady Caroline Lamb
My dearest Caroline,
– If the tears, which you saw, and I know I am not apt to shed; if the agitation in which I parted from you – agitation which you must have perceived through the whole of this nervous affair, did not commence till the moment of leaving you approached; if all I have said and done, and am still but too ready to say and do, have not sufficiently proved what my feelings are, and must ever be, towards you, my love, I have no other proof to offer.
God knows I never knew till this moment the madness of my dear dearest and most beloved friend. I cannot express myself, this is no time for words – but I shall have a pride, a melancholy pleasure, in suffering what you yourself can scarcely conceive, for you do not know me.
I am about to go out with a heavy heart, for my appearing this evening will stop any absurd story to which the events of the day might give rise. Do you think now I am cold and stern and wilful? Will ever others think so? Will your mother ever? The mother to whom we must indeed sacrifice much more, much more on my part than she shall ever know, or can imagine.
‘Promise not to love you’? Ah, Caroline, it is past promising! But I shall attribute all concessions to the proper motive, and never cease to feel all that you have already witnessed, and more than ever can be known, but to my own heart – perhaps, to yours. May God forgive, protect and bless you ever and ever, more than ever. –Your most attached
Byron
P.S. –These taunts have driven you to this, my dearest Caroline, and were it not for your mother, and the kindness of your connexions, is there anything in heaven or earth that would have made me so happy as to have made you mine long ago? And not less now than then, but more than ever at this time.
God knows I wish you happy, and when I quit you, or rather you, from a sense of duty to your husband and mother, quit me, you shall acknowledge the truth of what I again promise and vow, that no other, in word nor deed, shall ever hold the place in my affections which is and shall be sacred to you till I am nothing. You know I would with pleasure give up all here or beyond the grave for you, and in refraining from this must my motives be misunderstood?
I care not who knows this, what use is made of it – it is to you and to you only, yourself. I was, and am yours, freely and entirely, to obey, to honour, love and fly with you, when, where, and how, yourself might and may determine.
