He added: “The Josephinum is also the appropriate place for the acquisition of the fragments, since Beethoven’s physician, Johann Adam Schmidt, was also a professor at the Josephinum and Beethoven himself, during his lifetime, wished that his illness be studied and researched after his death.”Īccording to an academic report published in the Beethoven Journal in 2005, some of the composer’s bones went missing following a private autopsy.Ĭhristian Reiter, a Vienna-based forensic pathologist, has previously examined the skull fragments and deemed them to be credible. In a press release issued by the university, he said: “We gratefully accept these fragments and will store them responsibly our collections at the Josephinum are the right place for this.” Thanking Kaufmann for the donation, the rector of the university, Markus Müller, explained the museum’s special significance in the Beethoven story. The Seligmann fragments will now be housed in the university’s museum, the Josephinum.Ī lock of Beethoven's hair will soon be up for grabs He added: “It is extremely emotional to me to return the fragments where they belong, back to where Beethoven is buried.” Kaufmann explained that the team there have now taken DNA samples from the bones, which will take several months to analyze, before they can conclusively link them to the hair samples.ĬNN has contacted the institute for comment. In the days prior to the handover ceremony in Vienna, Kaufmann traveled to Germany to meet the experts behind the hair discovery at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig. The five hair samples helped scientists obtain insights into Beethoven’s family history, chronic health problems and what might have contributed to his death at the age of 56. “My great uncle was a medical history professor and he had expertise in skulls and anthropology because he collected skulls,” said Kaufmann.īeethoven's Bonn: A musical tour of the composer's home cityĮarlier this year, a study published in the journal Current Biology revealed how researchers had analyzed Beethoven’s DNA from preserved locks of his hair and sequenced the composer’s genome for the first time. He is buried in Vienna’s Central Cemetery. Years of research and investigations, coupled with details from letters and documents that Kaufmann unearthed, have since revealed the fragments were acquired by Seligmann in 1863, when Beethoven’s body was exhumed. When my wife and I opened it, among other things we found a little tin container and on the surface was inscribed ‘Beethoven.’” He said: “In her purse was a key to a safety deposit box in a local bank. In a telephone interview with CNN, Kaufmann, a retired businessman from Carmichael, California, said the surprise discovery came about when his mother died suddenly while visiting her brother in France. This letter is known as the Heiligenstadt Testament. In 1802, 25 years before his death, Beethoven wrote a letter to his brothers, asking that his doctor, Johann Adam Schmidt, determine and share the nature of his “illness” after his death. The composer was beset by health problems during his lifetime. German composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) conducting one of his three "Rasumowsky" string quartets, circa 1810.
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