DNA solves the 250-year mystery of Mozart's skull

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.