e times over, with an emotion that fairly
overpowered himself and all who heard him. Five days later, on the 31st
of May 1809, he breathed his last.
Funeral services were held in all the churches, and on June 15 Mozart's
Requiem was given in his honour at the Scots Church, when several
generals and administrators of the French army were present. Many poems
were also written in his praise.
Haydn was buried as a private individual in the Hundsthurm Churchyard,
which was just outside the lines, and close to the suburb of Gumpendorf,
where he had lived. The grave remained entirely undistinguished
till 1814--another instance of Vienna's neglect--when Haydn's pupil,
Chevalier Neukomm, erected a stone bearing the following inscription,
which contains a five-part canon for solution:
HAYDN
NATUS MDCCXXXIII. OBIIT MDCCCIX.
CAN. AENIGM. QUINQUE. VOC.
[figure: a musical score excerpt to the syllables non om - nis mo - ri -
ar]
D. D. D.
Discp. Eius Neukom Vindob. Redux. Mdcccxiv.
Desecration of Haydn's Remains
In 1820 the remains were exhumed by order of Prince Esterhazy, and
re-interred with fresh funeral honours in the Pilgrimage Church of
Maria-Einsiedel, near Eisenstadt, on November 7. A simple stone, with
a Latin inscription, is inserted in the wall over the vault. When the
coffin was opened, the startling discovery was made that the skull had
been stolen. The desecration took place two days after the funeral.
It appears that one Johann Peter, intendant of the royal and imperial
prisons of Vienna, conceived the grim idea of forming a collection of
skulls, made, as he avowed in his will, to corroborate the theory of
Dr Gall, the founder of phrenology. This functionary bribed the sexton,
and--in concert with Prince Esterhazy's secretary Rosenbaum, and with
two Government officials named Jungermann and Ullmann--he opened Haydn's
grave and removed the skull. Peter afterwards gave the most minute
details of the sacrilege. He declared that he examined the head and
found the bump of music fully developed, and traces in the nose of the
polypus from which Haydn suffered. The skull was placed in a lined box,
and when Peter got into difficulties and his collection was dispersed,
the relic passed into the possession of Rosenbaum. That worthy's
conscience seems to have troubled him in the matter, for he conceived
the idea of erecting a monument to the skull in his back garden! When
the desecration was discovered in 1
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