Adventures with Beethoven
Scene Three
Antonie Brentano
Antonie Brentano, Portrait by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1808, from Wikipedia
Around 1810-11 Beethoven met another intriguing woman, Antonie Brentano. Born Johanna Antonie Josefa Edle von Birkenstock in 1780, she was the daughter of an Austrian diplomat and art collector. Her father also acted as an advisor on education reform to Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Joseph II. The family lived in Vienna; however, following the death of her mother, Antonie was sent to a convent school in Pressburg (now Bratislava, Slovakia). She returned to Vienna at age eighteen and quickly attracted a number of suitors, falling in love with one of them. Her father, however, arranged for her to marry Franz Brentano, a wealthy merchant from Frankfurt. The couple first met in late 1796 or early 1797 but were not married until July 1798, following a lengthy negotiation with Antonie’s father. Eight days after the wedding, the couple moved to Frankfurt and later had six children.
Antonie returned to Vienna often to see friends and family. In August 1809 Antonie came to Vienna to care for her ill father. He died in October and she spent the next three years in Vienna organizing her father’s art collection for sale. Since her obligations were going to require a prolonged stay in Vienna, her husband set up an office in Vienna so he could be with his wife. It was during this time that the Brentano family got to know Beethoven and the playwright Johann Wolfgang van Goethe.
Beethoven quickly became a good friend to the family and was a frequent visitor. Antonie was often ill and, in an attempt to cheer her, Beethoven would come to play for her on a piano located outside her bedroom door. One time he was playing so wildly that Antonie’s daughter Maximiliane poured a pitcher of water on Beethoven’s head. Later Beethoven dedicated the Diabelli Variations to Antonie and most likely wrote the song cycle An die fern Geliebte (To the Distant Beloved) about her. Maximiliane was also the recipient of Beethoven’s music, he wrote a piano trio for her and dedicated Piano Sonata No. 30 to her.