IMMORTAL BELOVED (Untold Story of BEETHOVEN) Laserdisc

Plot summary

When Ludwig van Beethoven dies, his assistant and close friend Schindler deals with his last will and testament. There remains a question as to who Beethoven's "immortal beloved", an unnamed woman mentioned in one of his letters, may be. Schindler embarks on a quest to find out who this woman is. Retrospective footage of Beethoven from his younger years until his death is featured as the film progresses. The conclusion ultimately is that the individual is Johanna Reiss, the daughter of Anton Van Reiss, a prosperous Viennese upholsterer. In the film, she becomes pregnant by Beethoven; when by an accidental turn of events he does not marry her in time, she marries his brother, Kaspar. Their son, Karl van Beethoven, is raised by Ludwig in the vain hope of making him an important musician in his own right.

Filming took place in the Czech cities of Prague and Kromeriz and the Zentralfriedhof in Vienna, Austria between May 23 and July 29, 1994.  While the soundtrack utilizes modern instruments, the pianos that appear in the film actually date back to Beethoven's time.

After Beethoven's death in 1827, three short letters were found among his private papers addressed to a woman whom he called "immortal beloved". Believed to have been written in the summer of 1812 from the spa town of Teplice, the letters have generated a great deal of speculation and debate amongst scholars as to the subject's identity. Among the leading candidates are Giulietta Guicciardi, Thérèse von Brunswick, Antonie Brentano, Johanna van Beethoven, and Countess Anna-Marie Erdödy (all but one of whom appear in the film).

The film's writer and director, Bernard Rose, controversially claimed that he had successfully identified the addressed woman as Johanna, a claim no scholar or writer on Beethoven has endorsed. Biographer Gail S Altman notably disputed Rose's claim in a book devoted specifically to the question of the woman's identity and Beethoven's relationships in general.