Beethoven left behind an unsigned love letter addressed to an "immortal beloved," and never named her. No one has ever settled who she was.

IMMORTAL BELOVED (1994), written and directed by Bernard Rose, opens after the composer's death in 1827, as his assistant Anton Schindler, played by Jeroen Krabbé, sets out to identify the woman from the letter. The search moves through flashbacks tracing Beethoven's life, played by Gary Oldman, from his early career through the onset of deafness and the bitterness that followed it, with candidates including Anna Marie Erdödy, played by Isabella Rossellini, and Giulietta Guicciardi, played by Valeria Golino.

The score is performed by the London Symphony Orchestra under Georg Solti, with Murray Perahia on piano and Gidon Kremer on violin.

Rose treats the mystery less as a question to answer than as a way into Beethoven's temperament, with Oldman playing the composer as a man undone by his own ears.