The Curse of the Ninth
artikel
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David Hackett25. May 2023
The "Curse of the Ninth" is a superstition that a composer’s ninth symphony will be their last, and that they will die before completing a tenth.
The idea has its origins in Beethoven’s monumental Ninth symphony. Not long after completing the work, Beethoven started making sketches for a Tenth but died before he could make much progress.
As his Ninth had already pushed the symphonic form to unprecedented levels, a myth later developed that Beethoven had challenged the laws of nature by attempting a Tenth and had paid the ultimate price.
As Arnold Schoenberg once put it, “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." The unspoken belief was that nine symphonies marked the limit of human enquiry, serving as a kind of boundary that no composer, not even Beethoven, should cross.
But the obvious question is whether the superstition was ever born out in practice?
And the answer, to a surprising degree, is yes. Between 1824, when Beethoven completed his Ninth, and 1953 – a period of 129 years – when Shostakovich wrote his Tenth, no major composer wrote more than nine symphonies. Or at least not officially. Quite a few stopped at nine, as if afraid to go any further – with Franz Schubert, Louis Spohr, Antonin Dvorak, Anton Bruckner, Gustav Mahler, Alexander Glazunov, Kurt Atterberg and Ralph Vaughan Williams numbered among them.
Some were even aware of the jinx by now. The early twentieth century Russian composer, Alexander Glazunov (1865 – 1936), was sufficiently spooked out by it that he couldn’t bring himself to finish his Ninth symphony, never mind a Tenth. He put down his pen halfway through composing the former and never returned to the work. He lived for another 26 years.
But the man most freaked out by the idea was Austrian composer, Gustav Mahler (1860 – 1911). A highly strung individual at the best of times, Mahler was obsessed by the possibility of dying after nine symphonies, not least after he was diagnosed with an incurable heart condition shortly after completing his symphony number eight.
In response, he tried to cheat fate, or at least confuse the hell out of it, by writing a symphony which he cunningly called something else – his Das Lied Von der Erde (Songs of the Earth), also subtitled, “A Symphony for Tenor, Alto and Orchestra." Then he wrote his official Ninth symphony, survived and believed the danger had passed. He started his official Tenth… and died after completing one movement.
While this might make a compelling argument for not fighting destiny, the truth remains that Mahler had still technically completed ten symphonies.
And without wishing to spoil the fun here, there are serious question marks over several other members of the so-called “nine” club – the somewhat chaotic Franz Schubert, for example, didn’t even know how many symphonies he’d written at the end of his short life. His Ninth (composed in 1826) was known as his Seventh for most of the nineteenth century and didn’t find its rightful place in the Schubert catalogue until later.
Louis Spohr (1784 – 1859) created the impression that he had left the world nine symphonies, and only later did musicologists discover he’d completed a Tenth in old age but not told anyone.
Antonin Dvorak’s Ninth, written in 1893, was announced as his Fifth at the time – he wrote four early symphonies that were only re-discovered after his death. And Anton Bruckner (1824 – 96) wrote two symphonies that he later disowned, and which are not counted in his canon; never mind the fact that he didn’t even finish his official Ninth. And let’s not mention Joachim Raff…
It’s therefore a little arbitrary where you draw the line. As Graham Meyer recently put it in Chicago Magazine, the myth relies upon a “vision of Death that somehow survives the disproofs: a Grim Reaper who cares more about the way symphonies are numbered than how many there really are. Death as a bureaucrat from Kafka, ready to stamp a death certificate as soon as someone puts a 9 on it.”
The man credited with “officially” breaking the hoodoo was Soviet composer, Dimitri Shostakovich, who successfully completed his Tenth symphony in 1953. But Dimitri’s brain was full of somewhat more pressing concerns, such as how to survive as a public figure in a deeply unpredictable and often violent totalitarian state. He had to prioritize Stalin over the musical gods.
Since then a few others have got past nine, in some cases, well past. The most prominent examples are Havergal Brian (32), Alan Hovhaness (67), and Finland’s Leif Segerstam (a cool 352 and counting). But a few have still ended up marooned on the dreaded nine, sometimes by accident, sometimes by explicit design. They include Egon Wellesz, Roger Sessions, Vincent Persichetti, Alfred Schnittke, Peter Mennin, Malcolm Arnold and David Maslanka (Maslanka actually died of cancer while writing his Tenth in 2017).
You would think that the curse idea is now generally consigned to the distant past. But it’s surprising how it can still linger. Modern day composers smirk condescendingly at the idea, but when they come to write their own tenth symphony – usually at a mature stage of their life – they suddenly decide this might be a good time to give up eating buttered croissants or to ring their GP for a health check-up.
Philip Glass was 76 years old when he unveiled his Ninth symphony at Carnegie Hall, New York in 2013. Just to be on the safe side, he had already written his Tenth.
"Ninth Symphony," he tutted afterwards, "what kind of silly jinx is that?... But I wasn't going to wait to find out." The musical gods still tested Glass’ nerve when an audience member dramatically collapsed during the Carnegie Hall performance. After hearing of the incident, one or two people decided to give the symphony's UK premier a miss.
So at the end of the day is there anything we can learn from all of this?
The probable answer is that the whole idea is almost certainly an old wives’ tale and has absolutely no relationship with reality.
On the other hand, composers of a slightly nervous and superstitious disposition should probably stick to writing concertos and chamber music.
To read more from David Hackett, go to www.musicbytheyear.com
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