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",
Franz Schubert for arpeggione and piano (D. 821), or the unconventional scoring of the "Trout Quintet" (D. 667), which is scored for piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass, whereas conventional piano quintets are scored for piano and string quartet. Although Schubert was clearly influenced by the Classical sonata forms of Beethoven and Mozart, his formal structures and his developments tend to give the impression more of melodic development than of harmonic drama. This combination of Classical form and long-breathed Romantic melody sometimes lends them a discursive style: his "Great C major" Symphony was described by Robert Schumann as running to "heavenly