#Pet remembrance archive

Beethoven had repeatedly complained of back pains, and his DNA shows that he was susceptible to liver disease. The new analyses, which also looked for pathogens, were able to detect hepatitis B. In 2007, a high lead content had been detected in said curl and it was wrongly assumed that Beethoven had died of syphilis - a disease that was treated with lead-containing medicine at the time. One of the eight curls examined, the famous 'Hiller curl' - long firmly believed to be Beethoven's after Ferdinand von Hiller was allowed to take it from the body the day after the composer's death - turned out to be woman's hair after the latest DNA analysis, to the surprise of the researchers. 'Historical research is always an approximation,' says the musicologist. After all, she says, there was a buoyant trade after Beethoven's death, including in alleged Beethoven hair. It is not possible to say with absolute certainty that the hair used to sequence the DNA is authentic, Siegert says. Siegert says that Breuning was too late to get his own: 'When he arrived, Beethoven had already had all his hair cut off. When Beethoven was laid out in an open coffin after his death, many fans came and cut a lock from his hair. One account by Gerhard von Breuning, the son of Beethoven's close childhood friend Stefan von Breuning, demonstrates how popular the practice of collecting locks was. 'Our curl has a good provenance and it is very likely that it is authentic,' says Siegert.īeethoven gave the curl to the Streicher family of piano makers in 1820 while he was still alive. The house where he was born in 1770 is now a museum and archive, where scholars have kept examining the composer's legacy since his death in 1827. One of the locks of hair was contributed by the Beethoven Museum in Bonn. The researchers had eight such locks at their disposal, five of which showed matching DNA.

'Back then, people liked to give away locks of hair as friendship gifts.' 'The culture of remembrance was very different in the 19th century than it is today, when everyone can take selfies,' Siegert told DW. There are still 32 known examples of the locks worldwide. The story about Beethoven's locks of hair, which provided the DNA, played a major role.

#Pet remembrance archive

(Also Read | Bonn's Beethoven monument to be restored )Ĭhristine Siegert, head of the Beethoven Archive in Bonn, Germany, and a colleague have gathered the historical background for the research team. In short, the findings were turning Beethoven's biography upside down.īut even though the results are astounding, researchers have not reached the same conclusions as the media - or at least not with the same conviction. Other articles noted that Beethoven might not be genetically a Beethoven at all. This solved the mystery of his death, some media reports argued. One of the findings concluded that Beethoven had the liver disease hepatitis B.

When their new findings through DNA analyses of Beethoven's hair were recently published, the media eagerly jumped on the story offering more insight into the life of the famous classical composer. In 2014, an international team of researchers started working on sequencing Beethoven's genome for more clues into his condition. (Willfried Gredler-Oxenbauer/picture alliance) Beethoven statues exist in Vienna (above), where he lived most of his adult life, and Bonn, where he was born. As a result, he had requested a post-mortem autopsy in order to research his ailments.

When the composer wrote his famous Ninth Symphony, he was already deaf. Ludwig van Beethoven: A musical genius, but socially a curmudgeon.