An American tourist visiting the Austrian capital, Vienna, was walking through a graveyard when he suddenly started hearing music. He finally located the source and discovered that it was coming from the grave of Ludwig van Beethoven. Then he realized that the music he was hearing was the Ninth Symphony and that it was being played backwards. Mystified, he left the graveyard but later persuaded a friend to return with him. By the time the pair had returned to Beethoven's grave, the music had changed. This time it was the Seventh Symphony but, like the previous piece, it was being played backwards. To find an explanation for this bizarre phenomenon, the men decided to consult a music scholar. When they returned with the expert, the Fifth Symphony was playing, again backwards. The expert noticed that not only were the symphonies being played backwards but also in the reverse order to which they were composed. By the next day – as word spread throughout the music fraternity – a small crowd had gathered around Beethoven's grave. They were listening to the Second Symphony being played backwards. After a while the caretaker of the graveyard wandered over to the group, and someone in the crowd asked him if he could explain the reason for the strange music coming from Beethoven's grave. "Oh, it's nothing to get excited about," said the caretaker. "He's just decomposing."