Mozartschlock Watch

Apparently, some Innsbruck lab, in a page torn out of the Geraldo-In-Al-Capone's-Vault book of hype, is going to (maybe) reveal the positive identification of Mozart's skull on Austrian tee vee:

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.

Hmph. While the scientific discovery is interesting in itself, the way it's being served up is, IMHO, a lot of hooie.

Incidently, the picture CNN used to accompany the article says everything about the hype surrounding this year's celebration of Mozart's birth - it isn't even close to contemporary and doesn't look a thing like any of the portraits painted of him during his lifetime. Instead, it's simply "moderately handsome generic composer guy". The real Gangrl, frankly, was not very good looking, as this German Wikipedia collection of portraits indicates. Feh.