BEETHOVEN LETTER SELLS FOR $67,100

LONDON — A letter from Ludwig van Beethoven to the woman identified by recent scholarship as his mysterious “Immortal Beloved” sold for the equivalent of $67,100, Sotheby’s auction house said.

The price paid by an anonymous European buyer at a sale of music and manuscripts more than doubled the previous highest sum for a letter by the German composer.

The three-page letter to Antonie Brentano, written from Vienna on Feb. 6, 1816 relates family matters, introduces an English musician named Charles Neate and sends greetings to Antonie, her husband, Franz, and their children.

The existence of the “Immortal Beloved” was known from a love-letter so addressed and dated only “July 6” that was never sent and was found among Beethoven’s papers when he died in 1827.