mozart's head

[pianonut]

ten years after mozart was buried, a joseph rothmayer (who supposedly remembered the location and plot and placement of mozart in the crowded grave) rescued the decomposed composer's head and kept it as a 'momento.'  rothmayer left the skull to his successor joseph radschopf, who later, around 1842, gave it to jacob hyrtl who gave it to his brother joseph (who was a prominent viennese anatomist with a large collection of famous heads, including casts of the skulls of beethoven and schubert).  he removed the jawbone from the skull, and it has since disappeared (due to his phrenologing).

joseph's widow inherited his skull collection and when her estate was settled, mozart's skull was bequeathed to the mozarteum in salzburg where it has been ever since.

[pianonut]

ok.  i know this is somewhat morbid, but here's what happened to haydn's head:

"the world famous composer joseph haydn lost his head in 1809.  to be exact, it was stolen.  haydn wasn't recapitated until 1954.  in the intervening time, 145 years, his head, whose brain enriched the world with imperishable music such as the Creation and the Seasons, was treated as a prize over which men, museaums, and countries connived and fought like naughty playground children squabbling over a pretty marble."

the renown composer died at his home in vienna on may 31, 1809.  it was an "inconvenient time to have a fancy funeral, since the austrian capital had just been occupied by napoleon's troops."  his corpse was quietly removed to the parish church of gumpendorf in an oaken casket.  it was buried the same day in hundsturmer cemetary in vienna. 

due to the eagerness of viennese phrenologists, a 'cabal' of them bribed joseph rosenbaum, secretary to prince nicolous II esterhazy, to steal the musical genius's head and lend it to them for a few weeks.  rosenbaum, "a dabbler in phrenology himself (studying bumps on the skulls of famous people)," was undeterred by his close friendship with haydn.   he and an accomplice bribed the cemetary employees to look the other way and they exhumed the body (just days after interment), cut off the head, and reburied the rest.

they eventually returned the head to rosenbaum, who kept it.  it might have gone undetected forever except that in 1820 a visiting englishman reminded prince esterhazy of something.  he had intended to transfer joseph haydn's corpse to a specially built mausoleum on the estate of einstadt, where haydn had worked for thirty years (for the prince's grandfather). when he ordered the body disinterred, it was a head short!

there was a reward offerred for the missing head.  the grave robbers didn't trust the prince to keep his word, so they palmed off a substitute head.  rosenbaum confessed on his deathbed, but never gave the real skull to the prince.  he willed it to the vienna gesellschaft der musikfruinde (society of the friends of music).  the doctor of rosenbaum swiped it on the day his patient expired (he to was a phrenologist), and sold it to a noted austrian professor.  his widow finally gave it to the society of the friends of music.

in 1839 it came to the museaum and rested in a display case in the museaum 1895- 1954.  visitors were even allowed to handle the relic if they wished.  the esterhazy family thought that haydn's head deserved better treatment and at last in 1954 they convinced the musickfruend's to transfer the head to them for proper burial.  finally, haydn's head came to rest with his trunk in a new copper casket at bergkische of eisenstadt.  on the tombstone is written:  non moriar- sed vivam et narrabo opera domini or "i shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord."