Beethoven's Skull ─ Dark, Strange, and Fascinating Tales from the World of Classical Music and Beyond

Beethoven’s Skull is a humorous survey of the many strange happenings in the history of Western classical music. Working on the assumption that good music and shocking tabloid-style stories make excellent bedfellows, it details tales of revenge, murder, curious accidents, and strange fates that span over 2,000 years. Highlights include:

A cursed song that kills those who hear it
A composer who lovingly cradles the head of Beethoven’s corpse when his remains are exhumed half a century after his death
A fifteenth-century German poet who sings of the real-life Dracula
A dream of the devil that inspires a virtuoso violin piece

Unlike many music books that begin their histories with the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries, this book takes the reader back to the musical world of ancient Greece and Rome, progressing through the Middle Ages and all the way into the twentieth century. It also looks at myths and legends, nursery rhymes, and folklore, detailing the ways that musicians and their peers have been rather horrible to one another over the centuries.

Tim Rayborn writes on a variety of historical and musical topics, from the Middle Ages to the early twentieth century; he has a PhD from the University of Leeds in England. He is also a professional musician, with a specialty in medieval repertoire. He lives in Berkeley, California.