When Beethoven passed away, he was buried in a churchyard. A couple days later, the town drunk was walking through the cemetery and heard a strange sound coming from the area where Beethoven was buried. Terrified, he summoned the priest to come and listen to it.

The priest bent close to the grave and heard  faint, unrecognizable music coming from the grave. Frightened, the priest summoned the town magistrate.

When the magistrate arrived, he bent his ear to the grave, listened for a moment, then declared, “Ah, yes, that’s Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony being played backwards.” He listened a while longer and said, “There’s the Eighth Symphony and it’s backwards, too. This is most puzzling…”

Continuing to listen,  the magistrate noted,  “There’s the Seventh… the Sixth… the Fifth…”

Suddenly the realization of what was happening occurred to the magistrate. He stood up and announced to the gathering crowd, “My fellow citizens, there’s nothing to worry about, nothing at all. It’s just Beethoven decomposing…”