The skull of composer Joseph Haydn was stolen shortly after his death in 1809. The perpetrators were identified, but went unpunished. The skull was kept separate from the rest of Haydn's remains for a period of about 145 years.
The skull of composer Joseph Haydn was stolen shortly after his death in 1809. The perpetrators were identified, but went unpunished. The skull was kept separate from the rest of Haydn's remains for a period of about 145 years.
Haydn died in Vienna, aged 77, on May 31, 1809, after a long illness. As Austria was at war and Vienna occupied by Napoleon's troops, [1] a rather simple funeral was held in Gumpendorf, the parish in Vienna to which Haydn's house on the Windmühle belonged, followed by burial in the Hundsturm cemetery. [2] Following the burial, two men conspired to bribe the gravedigger and thereby sever and steal the dead composer's head. These were Joseph Carl Rosenbaum, a former secretary of the Esterházy family (Haydn's employers), and Johann Nepomuk Peter, governor of the provincial prison of Lower Austria. [3] Rosenbaum was well known to Haydn, who during his lifetime had intervened with the Esterházys in an attempt to make possible Rosenbaum's marriage to the soprano Therese Gassmann. [4]
Peter and Rosenbaum's motivation was an interest in phrenology, a now-discredited scientific movement that attempted to associate mental capacities with aspects of cranial anatomy; Peter and Rosenbaum were acquainted with and admired the work of Franz Joseph Gall, a leading phrenologist. [5] Of particular interest to phrenology was the anatomy of individuals held to have exhibited great genius during their lifetime. (Eighteen years later, a similar attempt was made on the body of Ludwig van Beethoven, possibly for similar reasons.) [6]
The head was stolen by the gravedigger (whose name was Jakob Demuth) only on June 4, and due to hot weather the head had decomposed considerably, causing Rosenbaum to throw up as he delivered it in a carriage to the hospital for dissection. According to Landon, "after an examination of an hour the head was macerated and the skull bleached." [7] Peter concluded that "the bump of music" in Haydn's skull was indeed "fully developed". [8] In September, the skull was installed in Peter's collection at his home, where it could be shown to visitors. [7] Peter kept it in a handsome custom-made black wooden box, with a symbolic golden lyre at the top, glass windows, and a white cushion. At some point in the ensuing decade, Peter gave up his skull collection and let Rosenbaum have, among others, the Haydn skull. [7]
In 1820, Haydn's old patron Prince Nikolaus Esterházy II was inadvertently reminded by the chance remark of an acquaintance that he had forgotten to carry through his plan of having Haydn's remains transferred from Gumpendorf to the family seat in Eisenstadt. [9]
Upon exhumation, they found a body with a wig above its severed neck. Haydn was in two. Nikolaus was enraged, and quickly deduced that Peter and Rosenbaum were responsible. [10] However, through a series of devious maneuvers (blaming a deceased doctor, two fake skulls; one rejected) Peter and Rosenbaum managed to maintain possession of the skull. Rosenbaum hid the skull in a straw mattress. During the search of Rosenbaum's house, his wife Therese lay on the bed and claimed to be menstruating—with the result that the searchers did not go near the mattress. [11] Eventually Rosenbaum gave Prince Esterházy a different skull.
After Rosenbaum's death in 1829, the skull passed from hand to hand. Rosenbaum had willed the skull to Peter, who gave it to his physician Karl Heller, from whom it went to a Professor Rokitansky, who in 1895 gave it to the Vienna Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (Society of the Friends of Music). [7] The musicologist Karl Geiringer, who worked at the Society before the advent of Hitler, would on occasion proudly bring out the relic and show it to visitors. [12]
In 1932, Prince Paul Esterházy, Nikolaus's descendant, built a marble tomb for Haydn in the Bergkirche in Eisenstadt. This was a suitable location, since it is where some of the masses Haydn wrote for the Esterházy family were premiered. The Prince's express purpose was to unify the composer's remains. [13] However, there were many further delays, and it was only in 1954 that the skull could be transferred, in a splendid ceremony, from the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde to this tomb, thus completing the 145-year-long burial process. When the composer's skull was finally restored to the remainder of his skeleton, the substitute skull was not removed. Thus Haydn's tomb now contains two skulls. [11]
Note: except where specified, all information was taken from the final chapter of Geiringer & Geiringer 1982.
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Franz Joseph Haydn was an Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions to musical form have led him to be called "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String quartet".
Johann Evangelist Haydn was a tenor singer of the classical era; the younger brother of the composers Joseph Haydn and Michael Haydn. He was often called "Hansl", a diminutive form of "Johann".
Symphony No. 22 in E♭ major, Hoboken I/22, is a symphony written by Joseph Haydn in 1764, under the auspices of the benign Prince Nikolaus Esterházy. Its nickname is "The Philosopher".
The House of Esterházy, also spelled Eszterházy, is a Hungarian noble family with origins in the Middle Ages. From the 17th century, the Esterházys were the greatest landowner magnates of the Kingdom of Hungary, during the time that it was part of the Habsburg monarchy and later Austria-Hungary. During the history of the Habsburg Empire, the Esterházy family was consistently loyal to the Habsburg rulers. The Esterházys received the title of Graf (Count) in 1626, and the Forchtenstein line received the title of Fürst (Prince) from the Holy Roman Emperor in 1712.
The composer Joseph Haydn is sometimes given the nickname "Papa" Haydn. The practice began in Haydn's lifetime and has continued to the present day.
Missa in tempore belli is a setting of the mass by Joseph Haydn. It is catalogued Mass No. 10 in C major. Known also as the Paukenmesse due to the dramatic use of timpani, it is one of the most popular of his fourteen mass settings. The autograph manuscript contains the title "Missa in tempore belli" in Haydn's handwriting.
Ludwig van Beethoven composed the Mass in C major, Op. 86, to a commission from Prince Nikolaus Esterházy II in 1807. The mass, scored for four vocal soloists, choir and orchestra, was premiered that year by the Prince's musical forces in Eisenstadt. Beethoven performed parts of it in his 1808 concert featuring the premieres of four major works including his Fifth Symphony. The mass was published in 1812 by Breitkopf & Härtel.
Nikolaus I, Prince Esterházy was a Hungarian prince, a member of the famous Esterházy family. His building of palaces, extravagant clothing, and taste for opera and other grand musical productions led to his being given the title "the Magnificent". He is remembered as the principal employer of the composer Joseph Haydn.
Eszterháza is a palace in Fertőd, Hungary, built by Prince Nikolaus Esterházy. Sometimes called the "Hungarian Versailles", it is Hungary's grandest Rococo edifice. It was the home of Joseph Haydn and his orchestra from 1766 to 1790.
Maria Anna Sabina (von) Genzinger, called Marianne, was a Viennese amateur musician, the mother of six children, and a friend of the composer Joseph Haydn. Her correspondence with Haydn preserves a personal view of the composer not available from any other biographical source. Her daughter Josepa was a singer who gave the first performance of Haydn's Ariadne auf Naxos.
Luigia Polzelli was an Italian mezzo-soprano, who sang at the Esterházy court in Hungary during the late 18th century. She was for a number of years the lover of the composer Joseph Haydn.
The ethnicity of the composer Joseph Haydn was a controversial matter in Haydn scholarship during a period lasting from the late 19th to the mid-20th century. The principal contending ethnicities were Croat and German. Mainstream musical scholarship today adopts the second of these two hypotheses.
Gregor Joseph Werner was an Austrian composer of the Baroque period, best known as the predecessor of Joseph Haydn as the Kapellmeister of the Hungarian Esterházy family. Few of Werner's works survive to the present day, and he is mostly remembered for his troubled relationship with Haydn.
Mathias Haydn was the father of two famous composers, Joseph and Michael Haydn. He worked as a wheelwright in the Austrian village of Rohrau, where he also served as Marktrichter, an office akin to village mayor.
Count Karl Joseph of Morzin (1717–1783) was a Bohemian aristocrat from the Morzin family, remembered today as the first person to employ the composer Joseph Haydn as his Kapellmeister, or music director. The first few of Haydn's many symphonies were written for the Count.
Prince Paul II Anton Esterházy de Galántha was a Hungarian prince, soldier and patron of music from the Esterházy family.
Nicholas II, Prince Esterházy was a Hungarian prince. He served the Austrian Empire and was a member of the famous Esterházy family. He is especially remembered for his art collection and for his role as the last patron of Joseph Haydn.
The Bergkirche is a church in Eisenstadt, the capital of the state of Burgenland in Austria. The church was built in the early 18th century by Prince Paul Esterházy. Eisenstadt was the seat of the Esterházy family, and the church lies just a short walk to the west of the family's main palace.
Joseph Carl Rosenbaum was an Austrian employee of the Esterházy family, later a private citizen whose house was a centre of Viennese social life.
