Curse of the ninth "serious" music criticism. Though composers can indeed be found who died after achieving nine symphonies (the most famous example perhaps being Ludwig van Beethoven), nine is not a statistically predominant total in the history of the symphony. In addition, while some very prominent composers (e.g. Schubert, Dvořák, Spohr, Bruckner, Mahler, and Vaughan Williams) are regularly adduced as examples, several of them are only credited with having "composed nine symphonies" as a result of error or oversimplification (see below). According to Arnold Schoenberg, this superstition began with Gustav Mahler, who, after writing his Eighth Symphony, wrote "Das Lied von der Erde",
Symphony No. 7 (Schubert) Symphony No. 7 (Schubert) Symphony No. 7 is the name given to a four-movement symphony in E major (D 729) drafted by Franz Schubert in August 1821. Although the work (which comprises about 1350 bars) is structurally complete, Schubert only orchestrated the slow introduction and the first 110 bars of the first movement. The rest of the work is, however, continued on 14-stave score pages as a melodic line with occasional basses or counterpoints, giving clues as to changes in orchestral texture. Schubert seems to have laid the symphony aside in order to work on his opera "Alfonso und Estrella",