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. 4 (Schubert) Symphony No. 4 (Schubert) Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 4 in C minor, D 417, called by its composer the "Tragic" (), was completed in April 1816, a year after his Third Symphony, when he was 19 years old. It was not premiered publicly, however, until November 19, 1849, in Leipzig, more than two decades after Schubert's death. Schubert added the title "Tragic" to his autograph manuscript some time after the work was completed. It is not known why. It can be noted, however, that the symphony is one of only two he wrote (the "Unfinished" Symphony is the other) in