When Beethoven passed away, he was buried in a churchyard.
A couple of days later, the town drunk was walking through the
cemetery and heard some strange noise coming from the area where
Beethoven was buried. Terrified, the drunk ran and got the priest
to come and listen to it. The priest bent close to the grave and
heard some faint, unrecognizable music coming from the grave.
Frightened, the priest ran and got the town magistrate.
When the magistrate arrived, he bent his ear to the grave,
listened for a moment, and said, "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. Most puzzling." So the
magistrate kept listening, "There's the Seventh... the Sixth...
the Fifth..."
Suddenly the realisation of what was happening dawned on the
magistrate. He stood up and announced to the crowd that had
gathered in the cemetary,
"My fellow citizens, there's nothing to
worry about. It's just Beethoven decomposing."