The 9th Symphony Curse?

[Joy]

In 1958 -- English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams dies in London at age 85, just after completing his Symphony No. 9.

Came upon this one today and thought how many composers only finished 9 symphonies?
Of course, Beethoven being one but I'm sure there are several others.

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'Truth and beauty joined'

[Fidelio]

Originally posted by Joy:
In 1958 -- English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams dies in London at age 85, just after completing his Symphony No. 9.

Came upon this one today and thought how many composers only finished 9 symphonies?
Of course, Beethoven being one but I'm sure there are several others.

This I have kept from Wikipedia...

In classical music the curse of the ninth refers to the popular and journalistic notion that some 'mortal' significance attaches to the composition of a 'ninth' symphony, which prevents the composer from writing another. After Beethoven died leaving his Tenth Symphony unfinished, many composers were superstitious about writing Ninth Symphonies for the rest of the nineteenth century. Following the composition of his Eighth, Gustav Mahler tried to "cheat death" by disguising his next symphony as an orchestral song cycle entitled Das Lied von der Erde. Although he went on to complete a work called the Ninth Symphony (which he considered his Tenth), he died before he could complete his Tenth (or, strictly and in his mind, his Eleventh). Perhaps Antonín Dvoøák was also superstitious about the number nine, because he wrote no symphonies after his New World Symphony, which is nowadays considered his Ninth, but which he thought of was his Eighth because he considered the score of his early C minor symphony lost forever. He lived for seven more years. In the twentieth century, a handful of composers, such as Dmitri Shostakovich, have written a Ninth Symphony and lived to write more.

Ralph Vaughan-Williams wrote nine complete symphonies, and the last symphony of Anton Bruckner is recognized as his ninth.

Also Sir Malcolm Arnold, and Franz Schubert wrote nine.

Nine is the number of Valkyries in Richard Wagner's Die Walküre.

.......and the latest from Wikipedia.....

The curse of the ninth is the superstition that any composer of symphonies, from Beethoven onwards, will die soon after writing their own Ninth Symphony.

This superstition is thought to have begun with Gustav Mahler, who after writing his Eighth Symphony wrote Das Lied von der Erde: Eine Symphonie für Tenor-Stimme, Contralt -Stimme und große Orchester (nach Hans Bethges "Die chinesische Flöte"). Then he wrote his Symphony No. 9 and thought he had beaten the curse, but died with his Tenth Symphony incomplete.

From Mahler's point of view, the only two victims of this curse had been Beethoven and Bruckner, and possibly Louis Spohr. Franz Schubert's Great C major Symphony would have been called No. 7 in Mahler's time, and Dvořák considered the score of his early C minor Symphony lost. Bruckner was superstitious about his own Ninth Symphony, not because of the curse of the ninth, but because it was in the same key as Beethoven's Ninth. (Bruckner considered his F minor Symphony just a school exercise, and the D minor Symphony nowadays known as No. 0 he declared invalid).

In an essay about Mahler, Arnold Schoenberg wrote: "It seems that the ninth is a limit. He who wants to go beyond it must pass away. It seems as if something might be imparted to us in the Tenth which we ought not yet to know, for which we are not ready. Those who have written a Ninth stood too close to the hereafter."

After Mahler, some composers used as examples of the curse include: Kurt Atterberg, Alfred Schnittke, Roger Sessions, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Egon Wellesz. Alexander Glazunov completed the first movement of his Ninth but worked on it no further for the 26 more years he lived.

Some counterexamples are: Glenn Branca and Hans Werner Henze (10 each), Edmund Rubbra and Robert Simpson (11 each), Heitor Villa-Lobos and Darius Milhaud (12 each), Dmitri Shostakovich (15), Allan Pettersson (17), Nikolai Myaskovsky (27), Havergal Brian (32), and Alan Hovhaness (63). Henze and Rubbra both wrote choral Ninths.

Composers before Beethoven, like Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, are not considered relevant to this superstition.

Fidelio
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Must it be.....it must be

[This message has been edited by Fidelio (edited 08-26-2006).]

[Hofrat]

Originally posted by Joy:
In 1958 -- English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams dies in London at age 85, just after completing his Symphony No. 9.

Came upon this one today and thought how many composers only finished 9 symphonies?
Of course, Beethoven being one but I'm sure there are several others.

Dear Joy;

Joachim Raff (1822-1882) composed 11 complete symphonies that were performed in Europe during his life time. As a matter of fact, his last four symphonies are titled "Spring," "Summer," "Autumn," and "Winter." He started this series without giving any thought about the "curse of the 9th!"


Hofrat

[Joy]

Many thanks Hofrat and Fidelio for all the interesting information. That's just what I was looking for.

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'Truth and beauty joined'

[paulverv]

Originally posted by Joy:
In 1958 -- English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams dies in London at age 85, just after completing his Symphony No. 9.

Came upon this one today and thought how many composers only finished 9 symphonies?
Of course, Beethoven being one but I'm sure there are several others.

I'm hoping it was his age rather than the symphony # which brought on his demise.

pv