STRANGE AND INCREDIBLY STUPID ADVENTURES OF JOSEPH HAYDN’S HEAD

Creativity is one weird beast. It is everything and nothing in particular. Mysterious, unidentified process that involves so many things it can be explained anyhow and somehow it still manages to be slightly misunderstood, utterly unexplainable and somewhat incomprehensible beyond the fact that it really is and it happens sometimes somehow but not exactly the way you might think.

Sometimes those who thrive to uncover the secrets of creativity can go a little bit too far with their obsessions. They can go at extreme lengths in order to achieve their utterly obscure and rather incomprehensible goals. Today I'm going to tell you the story of one of the most infamous instances of such overzealous behavior amongst the fans of classical music.

Why? Because it funny, strange and stupid at the same time. Not everything must be po-faced all the time. More on that later.

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Joseph Haydn was O.G. of composer's craft. He was one of the codifiers of the Symphony genre, the one who shaped many important elements that we now instantly recognize as irreplaceable parts of any symphonic piece. His inventive stylistic choices were mesmerizing. His music was filled with joy and playfulness. He also taught the music craft to "good old" Ludwig van Beethoven. At the beginning of the XIX century he was the force to be reckoned with - the man who represented the highest point of the craft. In other words, by the end of his life he was very respected man in the music community all over Europe.

He died in 1809 after a prolonged illness. Since he was a court musician for the Esterhazy family - he was to be buried on their grounds but he wasn't because at that time Vienna was occupied by Napoleons' troops. Because Haydn's house on the Windmuhle belonged to the Gumpendorf parish of Vienna, he was temporary buried in the Hundsturm cemetery.

In retrospect, it was rather bad idea.

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The problem with one of the biggest composers of his generation being buried on the city cemetery is somewhat curious. Since Haydn was obviously a great man, there were people who wanted to examine and dissect his genius in a very elaborate way. The science those overzealous researchers were following was phrenology.

At its core phrenology was about analyzing the connections between human psyche and the structure of its skull. It was developed in the end of XVII century by German physician Franz Joseph Gall. His idea was that brain was the organ of the mind and that it was divided into certain areas that are responsible for certain functions. Method of examining involved observing the skull in order to determine its certain attributes according to the extensive charts. It looked rather bogus - phrenologist would run his fingers and lay his hands on the skull and would try to detect any enlargements, indentations or other curiosities. He would also take some measures. From the measures of skull's proportions phrenologist would get into the character and temperament of the subject. It was since debunked as completely obsolete nonsense.

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Right around the time when Haydn died, phrenology's popularity was growing. One of its fans was the man named Joseph Carl Rosenbaum who coincidentally was a former secretary of Esterhazy family. Rosenbaum held special affection towards Haydn. He helped him to marry famous soprano singer Therese Gassmann. In a twisted turn of the thought, Rosenbaum wanted to explore and measure up Haydn genius. While Haydn was still alive it seemed a bit problematic, but when he died things got a lot easier. Rosenbaum just needed to get his head, examine and measure it and then he will shock the world with his discovery of the nature of the genius. He viewed it as a honest attempt to capture and honor the intangible genius of Haydn.

But he couldn't do it on his own. So he contacted Johann Nepomuk Peter, governor of provincial prison of Lower Austria, who was also interested in phrenology and had a certain desire to leave his mark in history.

Together, Rosenbaum and Peter had conspired to steal Haydn's head from his grave. For science's sake. And stuff. Because Rosenbaum was a responsible adult, he thoroughly documented this affair in his diaries.

Their first step was to coerce the gravedigger Jakob Demuth into malicious act. Demuth had digged out Haydn's grave, broke into his casket and had severed the composers head off his body leaving the wig upon shoulders (imagine that). He then delivered it to Rosenbaum and Peter wrapped in some bundle cloth. Because Haydn was buried at summertime, his head had gone through extensive process of decomposing. It was rather green but still recognizable Haydn's. When Rosenbaum saw it - he threw up. But he was convinced it was worth it.

Haydn's head was then delivered to the Vienna General Hospital for a further inspection. Rosenbaum and Peter were serious in his quest of unlocking and explaining the genius of Haydn. Sessions of extensive examinations and tests had followed. Together they have inspected the head accordingly. They had amassed some sort of information, but it wasn't taking shape of any kind. Apart from the conclusion that "bump of music" on the Haydn's skull was "fully developed", the only they had discovered during his research of Haydn's skull was that elaborate and rather irritating unsettling awkward feeling.

The head was then dissected, brain was taken out, the rest of the skull was bleached and macerated. After the attempts at coming to any kind of conclusions had failed it was decided to leave the skull as a souvenir. At first it was kept by Rosenbaum who even made a special display case for it. Haydn's head became a crown jewel of his assorted collection of skulls. Sometimes he showed it to his guests, although apparently no one really believed that it was really a Haydn's skull.

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And so the head stayed at Rosenbaum's residence up until 1820 when Prince Esterhazy finally decided to transfer composer's grave to the mausoleum in the Eisenstadt City Church which was situated on his estate. When workers where moving the casket they've found out that the head was missing. Prince Esterhazy felt a bit scorned. He quickly deduced who was responsible for the theft and so he informed the police who then quickly found a thread that connected mischievous gravedigger and Johann Peter.

After being pressed Peter had turned on Rosenbaum. But Mr. Joseph Carl R. was not the kind of man who could just give up his precious belonging without a fuss. After a little bit of messing with the authorities and pretending to be utter idiot, Rosenbaum finally gave up the skull to the police. After that he was left alone and he was feeling funny to a certain extent. Because he gave the police the wrong skull. When the police started to go-through his residence in search of the Haydn's skull, he conspired his wife to pretend that she had the period so he could safely hide the skull in her bed. Put this image in your head - woman lying on the skull in bed pretending to have severe case of mestruation. After that Rosenbaum sweared to remain silence about the Haydn's skull henceforth.

While the real skull was left at Rosenbaum's possession, the wrong skull was buried with the Haydn body in Eisenstadt. Nine years later, in 1829, Rosenbaum had died. According to his will the skull was going to be given to Johann Peter, who in turn should have presented it to Vienna's Society of the Friends of Music - prawling and powerful organization who archived and kept track of musical activity in the city. However, Peter never did it. After Peter's death his wife gave the skull to Karl Haller, well-known phrenologist, who in turn gave it to Karl Freiherr von Rokintansky, professor of the University of Vienna. The skull remained in the University.

In the same time, Vienna's Society of the Friends of Music had tried to get what belonged to them from Peter but when they stumbled upon notorious absence of the precious object they were a bit enraged. After a short search, the skull was located at the university of Vienna. Society filed a suit against the University. Descendants of the Esterhazy family found out about that. They were not happy to learn that their beloved court musician was buried with the wrong head. They wanted to get Haydn's skull back and so they filed another suit. They failed miserably, as in 1895 Austrian court had ruled out that the skull was to be given to the Vienna's Society of the Friends of Music. It stayed within the Society's estates for the next half of the century. In the 1930s Esterhazy offered the Society to sell the skull for the hefty price, but the price announced by the Society was beyond what Esterhazy could afford.

However, after Second World War Society had changed its mind and gave the skull to the Esterhazy Estate. In 1954, after 145 years of separation, the skull and the body were finally reunited.

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Why I've told you that story? Because there are many stories about creativity and its nature. Too many to my taste. Most of them either try to mystify or demystify the nature of creativity in some elaborate manner or just chew age-old truism that can force you to throw up if you think too hard and too much about it.

Many of such texts are united by vain attempts to tie creativity to some measurable concepts. However, all of them eventually explain nothing because creativity is not something you can divide into ones and zeros. It just happens. One way or another. As the saying goes - "the wind bloweth where it listeth".

The story of theft of Haydn's head is one delightful example of futility of such attempts.