VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Researchers say they will reveal the results of DNA tests on a skull believed to be that of Mozart in a film airing this weekend on Austrian television as part of a year of celebratory events marking the composer's 250th birthday.

The tests were conducted last year by experts at the Institute for Forensic Medicine in the alpine city of Innsbruck, and the long-awaited results will be publicized in "Mozart: The Search for Evidence," to be screened Sunday by state broadcaster ORF.

Past tests were inconclusive, but this time, "we succeeded in getting a clear result," lead researcher Dr. Walther Parson, a renowned forensic pathologist, told ORF. He said the results were "100 percent verified" by a U.S. Army laboratory, but refused to elaborate.

The skull in question is one that for more than a century has been in the possession of the International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg, the elegant Austrian city where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on Jan. 27, 1756.

Parson said genetic material from scrapings from the skull was analyzed and compared to DNA samples gathered in 2004 from the thigh bones of Mozart's maternal grandmother and a niece. The bones were recovered when a Mozart family grave was opened in 2004 at Salzburg's Sebastian Cemetery.

Mozart died in 1791 and was buried in a pauper's grave at Vienna's St. Mark's Cemetery. The location of the grave was initially unknown, but its likely location was determined in 1855.

The grave on that spot is adorned by a column and a sad-looking angel.

Legend has it that a gravedigger who knew which body was Mozart's at some point sneaked the skull out of the grave. Through different channels, the skull -- which is missing its lower jaw -- came to the Mozarteum in Salzburg in 1902, according to Dr. Stephan Pauly, the foundation's director.

The foundation, a private nonprofit organization that works to preserve Mozart's legacy, was founded in 1880 by Salzburg residents and made the skull available for the DNA tests.

The skull long has fascinated experts: In 1991, a French scholar who examined it made the startling -- though unconfirmed -- conclusion that Mozart may have died of complications of a head injury rather than rheumatic fever as most historians believe.

Anthropologist Pierre-Francois Puech of the University of Provence based his belief on a fracture he found on the skull's left temple. Mozart, he theorized, may have sustained it in a fall, and that would help explain the severe headaches the composer was said to have suffered more than a year before his death.

Austria has designated 2006 a Mozart jubilee year, with dozens of events in Salzburg, Vienna and elsewhere to commemorate his 250 birthday.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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January 07, 2006

From Roger Boyes in Salzburg

MUSEUM staff in Salzburg refused for years to go near the case displaying the skull that had reputedly housed the brain of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Notes, even screams, were said to emanate from it at night: signs, perhaps, of a tortured soul.

Now Mozart fans will be told whether the skull belonged to the composer. "DNA comparisons have succeeded in obtaining a clear result," Walther Parson, of the University of Innsbruck, said. The result will be announced tomorrow as part of Austria’s celebrations of the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth. Scrapings from the skull have been compared with DNA samples from the exhumed bones of Mozart ’s family. The skull has been in the safekeeping of the International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg since 1902.

If the skull is genuine it could help to clear up a debate about the cause of Mozart’s death in 1791. The official cause of death was recorded as "severe military fever". His miserable death fuelled rumours of poisoning, and fingers were pointed at Antonio Salieri, a rival composer, and the husband of one of Mozart’s married lovers.

Pierre-François Puech, of the University of Provence, has suggested that Mozart died of a head injury. The skull shows signs of a fracture on the left temple: this could explain the composer’s headaches, which grew worse in his last year. Mozart was initially buried in a pauper’s grave. Ten years later, the grave in the Cemetery of St Marx in Vienna was retrenched. It was opened by the sexton Joseph Rothmayer, who had buried Mozart, and had tied wire to his throat to identify him. According to records, Rothmayer gave the skull to a friend, who passed it on to Jacob Hyrtl. A member of Hyrtl’s family eventually gave the skull to the Salzburg museum.

Doubts on the skull’s authenticity were cast by an archivist who found a doctor’s description of Mozart’s body noting that he had only seven teeth. The skull in Salzburg had 11.

Copyright 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd.

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USA TODAY.COM

Mystery of 'Mozart's skull' still unsolved

By William J. Kole, Associated Press

VIENNA — It's a Mozart mystery as haunting as his Requiem— and apparently it won't be solved any time soon.

After months of sophisticated DNA sleuthing reminiscent of a CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode, forensics experts admitted Sunday on national television they still can't say with certainty whether an ancient skull belonged to the composer as some believe.

Past tests on the skull also were inconclusive, and a joint analysis conducted by the Institute for Forensic Medicine in Innsbruck and the U.S. Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Rockville, Maryland, raised more questions than answers, lead researcher Dr. Walther Parson conceded.

"For the time being, the mystery of the skull is even bigger," Parson's team concluded in Mozart: The Search for Evidence, a much-hyped documentary aired Sunday evening on Austrian state broadcaster ORF in the run-up to the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth.

Since 1902, the skull — which is missing its lower jaw — has been in the possession of the International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg, the elegant Austrian city where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on Jan. 27, 1756.

Parson, an internationally renowned forensic pathologist, said genetic material from two teeth removed from the skull was analyzed and compared with DNA samples gathered in 2004 from the thigh bones of two skeletons exhumed from the Mozart family grave at Salzburg's St. Sebastian Cemetery.

Experts had assumed the remains were of Mozart's maternal grandmother and a niece. But DNA analysis showed that none of the skeletons in the grave were related, making it impossible to prove that the skull was Mozart's, Parson said.

"The dead took their secrets to the grave," the documentary concluded.

Mozart died in 1791 at age 35 and was buried in a pauper's grave at Vienna's St. Mark's Cemetery. The location of the grave was initially unknown, but its likely location was determined in 1855.

Legend has it that Joseph Rothmayer, a gravedigger who knew which body was Mozart's, sneaked the skull out of the grave in 1801. Today, the spot is adorned by a column and a sad-looking angel.

The skull long has fascinated experts: In 1991, a French anthropologist who examined it made the startling — though unconfirmed — conclusion that Mozart may have died of complications of a head injury rather than rheumatic fever as most historians believe.

Pierre-Francois Puech of the University of Provence based his belief on a fracture on the left temple. Mozart, he theorized, may have sustained it in a fall, and that would help explain the severe headaches the composer was said to have suffered more than a year before his death.

This year's 250th anniversary has inspired a flurry of revelations about virtually every aspect of Mozart's brief but musically prolific life and the circumstances surrounding his death.

A researcher, Otto Biba, claims in a new book he has uncovered evidence suggesting the composer was far from poor, and that at the height of his career he earned the equivalent of $45,000 a year in today's terms.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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