The tomb of the illustrious Navarrese musician and composer Joaquín Gaztambide, whose remains were dismissed in Madrid in 1921 with great pomp, hides a mystery that was revealed in 1955 when, when the coffin was opened in the Tudela cemetery, a surprising discovery was made : a body, apparently of a woman, and some red shoes high-heeled.

To try to solve this enigma, the Tudela City Council has now decided to reopen the tomb of the famous Tudelano and take a sample of the body to compare its dna with that of a great-grandson of Gaztambide.

The musician from Tudel, author of zarzuelas such as “La mensajera”, “El Valle de Andorra” or “La conquista de Madrid”, died in 1870 of liver disease. In fact, his liver, large due to the ailment he suffered, is still preserved embalmed in the Archaeological Museum of Madrid.

In 1921his remains, which were kept in the Patriarchal cemetery of Madrid, were fired by eminent representatives of Spanish culture and moved to Tudela, where the City Council planned to build a pantheon in the cemetery, although the remains were deposited in a family chapel, where they remained until 1955.

In December of that year, a commission was created in Tudela to open the coffin and inspect the remains of Gaztambide with the idea of ​​placing them in a pantheon that had not yet been built. One of the members of this commission was the doctor José María Remacha, brother of the musician from Tudel, Fernando Remacha.

It was both of them who, upon opening the coffin, found a tiny body and the remains of a pair of red high-heeled shoes. A medical examiner determined that the human remains belonged to a old and small woman.

Since then, a halo of mystery has hung over the tomb of the Navarrese musician, since it seems proven that the remains that left Madrid in 1921 were indeed those of Gaztambide, just like those that arrived in Tudela.

To try to shed some light on the mystery, the mayor of Tudela, Alejandro Toquero, has announced on social networks that he has given authorization to open the Gaztambide niche for “find out if it’s really there and it’s him“.

“To do this, we will analyze his DNA and compare him with a living great-grandson of his that we have located and who has given his consent to take the test. We cannot leave a doubt that one of the most important Tudelanos in history does not rest where he deserves. In his house”, emphasizes the first mayor of Tudelano.

The musician, singer, producer, composer, arranger and director Óscar Salvoch, an expert on the figure of Gaztambide, has shown EFE his surprise at this decision: “I am a defender of the great illustrious Navarrese and, if we know the truth, even better, obviously, but, after almost 70 years, doing some DNA tests I personally don’t see it”.

“If you are looking for the remains of Joaquín Gaztambide when it is known that a woman’s body appeared in his day, the initial approach is already a bit strange,” he said.

Salvoch has ensured that, apart from “the famous red high heels“, music history books describe Gaztambide “as a tall and robust person, and the body that appeared in 1955 was rather small. Something’s wrong.”

The Tudelano composer was married, but it seems ruled out that the remains found belong to his wife. “It was not customary at the time, it was very rare in the 19th century to bury spouses together,” Salvoch said.

The expert in Navarrese composers has stressed that Gaztambide “was one of the great composers and one of the great Spanish cultural personalities of his time” and, therefore, he is more inclined to “unearth” his figure and his work than his supposed remains.

Official institutions “should place more emphasis on rescue his work and value it. If we also have the body, well, it’s an addition, but the important thing is not whether the body that is kept in Tudela is his or not, the important thing is that we know absolutely nothing about Gaztambide in Navarra”.

DNA status

Naiara Lizarraga, a laboratory technician in the molecular biology section of the Nasertic laboratory, explained to EFE that the problem in these cases is how the remains have been preserved. “If they haven’t suffered a lot of humidity, if it hasn’t been too long, we can do the analysis and compare the results with those of her great-grandson,” she pointed out.

The DNA check would be done by the Y chromosome, which is inherited en bloc from parents to children. Doing this analysis, the laboratory gives a probability or percentage that both people are relatives through the paternal line.

If the DNA sample is good, it can be determined if it is from a man or a woman, because in this case the Y chromosome would not appear. But in this case, he commented, it is a 150-year-old sample. “We generally analyze samples from the Civil War and in some cases nothing even comes out,” she acknowledged.

In this way, the mystery generated around the remains of the Tudelano musician remains for the moment. And perhaps it will never be possible to answer the two big questions that were already formulated in 1955: whose body is in the coffin and whose red high-heeled shoes? What happened to Gaztambide’s body?

Source: Eitb

Bruce

Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.