page_title: Anna Maria Erdődy
section_title: "Immortal Beloved" candidacy
hierarchical_section_title: Anna Maria Erdődy / "Immortal Beloved" candidacy
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Erdödy-Landgut in der Jeneweingasse 17 in Wien-Floridsdorf. Ganz rechts der hl. Florian. &#160; This media shows the protected monument with the number 21931 in Austria. (Commons, de, Wikidata)
context_page_description: Countess Anna Maria von Erdődy was a Hungarian noblewoman and among the closest confidantes and friends of Ludwig van Beethoven. Dedicatee of four of the composer's late chamber works, she was instrumental in securing Beethoven an annuity from members of the Austrian high nobility.
context_section_description: In her second biographical study of the composer, Beethoven scholar Gail S. Altman investigates Maynard Solomon's claims for the identity of the woman who Beethoven, in an undated letter found among his effects, called his "Immortal Beloved" (Unsterbliche Geliebte). Altman builds a thorough case—using Solomon's own criteria—for Anna Maria Erdődy as the preferred putative recipient of the letter. Questioning Solomon's attribution of the place-initial "K", in the Immortal Beloved letter, to Karlsbad, she offers in its place the hypothesis that "K" might instead refer to Klosterneuburg, then the closest post-stop to Marie Erdödy's estate at Jedlesee and to her summer residence at Hernals, Klosterneuburg's neighbouring villages north of Vienna, it being documented how familiar the couple had grown since at least the year 1808, and noting Marie's 1805 separation from her husband. Altman's ascription of "K" to Klosterneuburg has been rejected by at least one writer on logistical grounds: citing the alleged absence of crossings yet apparently unaware that in summer 1812, as Altman makes clear, Marie was at Hernals on the west bank of the Danube, Barry Cooper questions Altman's Klosterneuburg attribution on the basis of Jedlesee lying across the river from it. As Altman says in summing up, Beethoven visited Hernals in September 1812, "and therefore saw his Beloved as he had indicated he would in his letter to her", adding that, wherever Beethoven expected to be at the time he wrote the letter was where the Beloved would have been, both to receive the letter and to reunite with him.
caption: The Erdödy estate in Jedlesee, now a museum and memorial. A plaque commemorating Beethoven's frequent visits there can be seen on the wall at left (enlarged, middle), Marie's own plaque (enlarged, top) at far right.
exif: {}