Bone fragments believed to belong to famed 18th-century composer Ludwig van Beethoven are being returned to Vienna after spending 30 years in a locked drawer in California.
Beethoven was the definition of a tortured genius, battling deafness to compose symphonies he couldn’t hear properly.
The bones were in the possession of California businessman Paul Kaufmann, who first took possession of the fragments in 1990 after the death of his mother, who lived in southern France.
He then found a mysterious key that opened a safe that had another box inside with a famous name on it.
“A black iron container, actually, with a lid and scratched on the surface…was called Beethoven,” Kaufmann explained.
Bone fragments believed to belong to famed 18th-century composer Ludwig van Beethoven are being returned to Vienna after spending 30 years in a locked drawer in California
The key opened the second box, leading to the fragments of a skull believed to belong to the tragic composer, wrapped in cloth.
Shocked, Kaufmann took the skull pieces back to the Bay Area with him and spent the next three decades researching scholars to try to determine if they were really Beethoven.
“We learned later that the investigators were very excited about this,” Kaufmann said. CBS News.
They discovered that a great-great-uncle of Kaufmann named Dr. Franz Romeo Seligmann obtained the fragments as early as 1863.
Beethoven’s skull had been exhumed for research to find out how he had become deaf.
“And then it was passed down to me, all those 170 years, as the sole survivor of the family,” Kaufmann said of the fragments, which now bear the name of his relative Seligmann.
Last week, Kaufmann traveled to the Medical University of Vienna – near Beethoven’s home – to return the Seligmann fragments.
University researchers have previously said they believe the fragments are the real deal, but will investigate further in a DNA lab.
Beethoven was the definition of a tortured genius, battling deafness to compose symphonies he couldn’t hear properly
The bones were in the possession of California businessman Paul Kaufmann, who first took possession of the fragments in 1990 after the death of his mother, who lived in southern France.
“It’s totally exhilarating,” Kaufmann said. “I can look up at the sky and see my mother and all my loved ones so happy to be back in Vienna, where they belong.”
Earlier this year, geneticists pieced together the medical history of Beethoven, who died in 1827, using clues from five verified strands of hair.
The composer was so fond of a drink that his last reported words, after receiving a gift of Rhenish wine on his deathbed, were: “Too bad! Too late!’
But the new findings that he was infected with the liver-damaging hepatitis B virus and that he had a genetic predisposition to liver problems suggest that his death from probable cirrhosis of the liver is not might not have been solely due to alcoholism.
A popular theory that Beethoven was deafened by lead, which was used to sweeten wine in the 19th century, may have been overturned by the new study.
This theory was largely based on a lock of hair thought to belong to the composer, which according to the new analysis now came from a woman of Ashkenazi Jewish descent.
And there’s an exciting new theory about the composer, as genetic analysis has found an illegitimate child in his family tree.
This finding, coming from modern Beethoven relatives whose genes have been sequenced, is imprecise and could have occurred up to seven generations after Beethoven.
German composer and pianist Ludwig van Beethoven was born in 1770 in Bonn and died in Vienna in 1827 at the age of 56
Scientists have analyzed five strands of what are believed to be Beethoven’s hair to sequence the prodigious composer’s genome
But it is extremely possible that the composer himself was the product of an illicit affair, and only the half-brother of his brother Kaspar, although much more research is needed to prove this.
In 1802, Beethoven asked his doctor to describe his illness to him and to make this file public.
The great man’s health and cause of death have been debated ever since, but previously without the benefit of genetic research.
Researchers, who examined 18 feet of Beethoven’s hair in total, found no genetic cause for his famous deafness, which began with tinnitus and loss of high frequencies in his 20s and left him largely deaf in his twenties. 1818.
There was also no clear genetic cause for the “miserable” abdominal pain and bouts of diarrhea that plagued the genius from his early twenties, though celiac disease and lactose intolerance could be ruled out. and that the composer had some genetic protection against IBS.
In the summer of 1821, Beethoven had the first of at least two attacks of jaundice, a symptom of liver disease.
Cirrhosis has long been considered the most likely cause of his death at age 56.
The researchers found a number of genetic risk factors for liver disease and evidence of hepatitis B infection in the months before the composer’s last illness.
Ludwig van Beethoven: The defining figure in the history of Western music
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was a German composer and pianist, who is arguably the defining figure in the history of Western music
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was a German composer and pianist, who is arguably the defining figure in the history of Western music.
Ludwig Van Beethoven was born in December 1770, but no one knows exactly when. He was baptized on the 17th.
The first recorded piece composed by Beethoven is a set of nine variations for piano, composed in 1782.
Beethoven moved to Vienna in 1792, where he met influential composers like Haydn and began to compose seriously.
By 1796 he had begun to suffer from tinnitus and was losing his hearing.
Beethoven composed his Piano Sonata No. 14 (“Moonlight”) in 1802.
The Third Symphony, known as the “Eroica”, was completed in 1804.
He then redefined the symphony as a genre.
The opening motif of the 1808 Fifth Symphony is one of the most famous musical excerpts in history.
The “middle period” of Beethoven’s career also saw him compose piano works like the Waldstein and Apassionata sonatas, as well as his only opera, Fidelio, which went through countless rewrites and revisions.
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the “Chorus” of 1824, is another of his works that has remained immensely popular.
It was the first time a composer had used choral voices in a major symphony.
Poor health and increasing deafness led to a decline in productivity at the end of Beethoven’s life, but he still managed to produce important works like his “Late Quartets” in 1825, which were wildly inventive for their time. .
Beethoven died in Vienna on March 26, 1827 after a long illness attributed to alcohol, hepatitis, cirrhosis and pneumonia.
