A ps for those who are interested in the details of the riddle of the
IB and in a correct translation of the famous love letter. The best is
the translation by Virginia Beahrs, published in 1990 in The Beethoven
Newsletter (vol.5, #2), entitled "My Angel, My All, My Self, a literal
translation of Beethoven's letter to the Immortal Beloved." Beahrs's choice
for Beethoven's "meine unsterbliche Geliebte" is "my immortal beloved."
Insofar I can judge it this is a correct and literal translation and also
the rest is very good. I've discussed Beahrs's translation with various
bilingual persons, whose German is as well as their English, and they
called it excellent. Only one sentence received some criticism. This one:
"wir werden unss wohl bald sehn" (Beethoven's spelling). The problem is
the word "wohl." The English doesn't have such little words that seem
rather unimportant for a good understanding of a sentence. However, they
are (sometimes). For Dutch speakers it's no problem. The translation is
"wij zullen elkaar wel gauw onmoeten", in which sentence "wel = wohl" and
it means exactly the same. Both words point to a subtle uncertainty about
the forthcoming meeting and that doesn't fit to Antonie Brentano, for
Beethoven must have known for sure that she was in Karlsbad. By the end
of July he left Teplitz (where he had written his letter, intending to send
it to a mysterious town "K") and travelled to Karlsbad. This trip is the
corner stone of Solomon's hypothesis. But why did Beethoven write "wohl"
if he knew for sure that Antonie was in K? This is one of the many facts
that don't fit to the hypothesis. How to translate Beethoven's "wohl"
into correct English? I've seen "probably", "most probably", "surely",
"for sure", but also "I fancy." That differs a lot! Oh well, enough,
I'm probably annoying you all. Anyway, it's time to drop Anderson's
translation of the letter, let alone the far from correct one by Kerst.
Unfortunately Solomon used the Kerst translation in his biography.
Joyce Maier
www.ademu.com/Beethoven
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