Halloween is the perfect opportunity to wander into the spooky side of classical music. CBC Classical has assembled these three true stories of classical cadavers guaranteed to strike an eerie chord. Before you go any further, you might want to dim the lights and turn on some background music.
Haydn seek
You can imagine the surprise when Haydn’s remains were being moved to a newer, grander tomb and the body was missing its head.
The culprit? Joseph Rosenbaum. He was a stable manager for Haydn’s employer, Prince Esterházy. Rosenbaum also dabbled in amateur phrenology, the false science of learning about someone based on measurements of their decomposing skull. Shortly after Haydn’s death, Rosenbaum and an accomplice bribed the undertaker to let them into his grave. They made off with Haydn’s head.
For nearly 150 years, police struggled with a game of Haydn seek. The skull was quietly passed through a series of guardians. Police raids came close, but the skull was hidden within a mattress. Then there were a few cases of false handovers to police via skull switcheroos, resulting in the wrong skull being buried with Haydn’s body for some time. Finally, the odd story resolved in 1954 when the proper skull was reunited with its body at a strange ceremony in Vienna.
Brahms and Strauss Jr.’s untimely extraction
It gets weirder. The teeth of Brahms and Strauss Jr. were discovered missing this past July. The alleged thief, according to ABC News, is a Slovak man who calls himself the "Freedom Undertaker." He boasts of his famous teeth collection on his own YouTube channel.
The "Freedom Undertaker" takes his viewers on a tour of Vienna’s Central Cemetery (Zentralfriedhof) and points to evidence that the crypts have been opened. The two sets of teeth are part of a larger collection, which he intends to show off at his very own museum.
ABC News says that since the videos are from 2002, the crime may be too old to prosecute. Meanwhile, Austrian authorities have checked the graves of Schubert and Beethoven, which are located in the same cemetery. There’s no word on what they have (or haven’t) found.
Beethoven rolls over — twice!
“After 5:00, there came a flash of lightening accompanied by a violent clap of thunder. After this unexpected phenomenon of nature, Beethoven opened his eyes and lifted his right hand.
When he let the raised hand sink to the bed, his eyes closed halfway. Not another breath, not a heartbeat more.”
Account of Beethoven's death, by Anselm Hüttenbrenner
Vienna, March 26, 1827
From Lewis Lockwood's Beethoven: The Music and the Life
Beethoven was first buried at Vienna’s Währing cemetery, where you can still find the original gravestone. His body was exhumed nearly 40 years later, shortly before Halloween. Experts studied his body for a possible cause of death and deafness (“alcohol was probably a contributory factor” suggests Beethoven scholar Barry Cooper). He was re-buried later that day, with the exception of a mysterious few pieces of skull.
In 1888, Viennese authorities wanted to centralize the town’s many gravesites. Beethoven’s remains were recovered and moved to the Vienna Central Cemetery, but not before scientists, physicians and aficionados were given a mere 20 minutes to measure, inspect and draw Beethoven’s decaying remains.
Back to the missing skull. Pieces appear from time to time, including a probable 2005 discovery in California.
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