The embalmed body of 19th-century composer and piano virtuoso Sigismond Thalberg has been found in the corner of his family vault in Naples, having been torn from the glass casket in which it had rested for nearly 150 years. The gory discovery was made by his great-great-granddaughter Giulia Ferrara Pignatelli who had gone to the cemetery with Francesco Nicolosi, President of the Neapolitan Thalberg Centre, in order to assess the substantial monument before contracting workmen for essential cleaning and repairs.

Thieves had broken through two sets of gates – the second of which had been wrenched from its hinges – and even attempted to break through the marble floor with a pickaxe in an attempt to reach the vault beneath the elaborate tomb in the Poggioreale cemetery. Thalberg’s last resting place had been broken open and a brass urn stolen. Signora Pignatelli described the scene as “gruesome”.

Born in Geneva in 1812, Thalberg is today considered a footnote in musical history, but in his day he was one of the most respect pianists, composers and pedagogues in Europe who was ranked alongside the likes of Kalkbrenner and Moscheles and even bore...