such intellectual talent. At the same time Josephine was unhappy! Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien—both together they would have been happy (perhaps). What he needed was a wife, that's for sure." "I was so lucky to have been acquainted with Beethoven, intimately and intellectually, for so many years! Josephine's intimate friend, her soul mate! They were born for each other, and if both were still alive, they would be united." Goldschmidt's evaluation of the Josephine hypothesis: "Without conclusive proofs of the opposite one should no longer want to part prematurely with the increasingly justified assumption that the 'Immortal Beloved' could hardly be anyone else but the 'Only Beloved'." Josephine's candidacy as the "Immortal Beloved" was contested by Solomon (1988), mainly in response to Massin (1955, 1970), Goldschmidt (1980) and Tellenbach (1983). Antonie Brentano and other alternatives (1955 to 2011) In 1955 the French scholars Jean and Brigitte Massin noted that Antonie Brentano was present in Prague and Karlsbad at the time and proposed her as a possible candidate for the "Immortal Beloved": "The assumption that it could have been Antonie Brentano, is both tantalizing and absurd." They then argue: Tantalizing is the assumption, because Beethoven and Antonie, since her return to Vienna, were "on friendly terms", In the summer of 1812 he lived in the same hotel in Franzensbad as the Brentanos, and He had dedicated in the same year to her daughter Maxe a one-movement trio. Absurd, they argue, is the assumption because of Beethoven's lasting friendship with Antonie's husband, Franz, He borrowed money from him, and "The many letters he wrote Antonie prove that a true and deep but—due to mutual restraint—nevertheless only formal friendship existed between them and Beethoven always seems to perceive Franz, Antonia and their children as an inseparable unity." There was four years later also a claim by a Japanese author (Aoki 1959, 1968) who had "discovered" Antonie. However, this had not been noticed outside Japan. She also published her findings again in a recent book in German (Aoki 2008). Once again and more detailed Solomon (1972, 1998) suggested Antonie Brentano to have been the "Immortal Beloved". His hypothesis was founded on two major assumptions (or prerequisites): 1. the woman must have been in Prague and Karlsbad around the time in question (like Beethoven); 2. she must have been closely acquainted (at least on very friendly terms) with Beethoven, at the time immediately