Alois Jeitteles was a young physician who was also making a name for himself as a poet when he wrote the six poems which Beethoven wove into the beautiful "An die ferne Geliebte" (To the distant Beloved). It is a true Liederkreis (song cycle), which became the model for those of Schubert, Schumann and others. It is thoroughly composed so that the songs are inseparable from one another and ends with the beginning theme, making a circle.