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. 8 (Beethoven) tradition in making the last movement the weightiest of the four. The work was begun in the summer of 1812, immediately after the completion of the Seventh Symphony. At the time Beethoven was 41 years old. As Antony Hopkins has noted, the cheerful mood of the work betrays nothing of the grossly unpleasant events that were taking place in Beethoven's life at the time, which involved his interference in his brother Johann's love life. The work took Beethoven only four months to complete, and is, unlike many of his works, without dedication. The premiere took place on 27 February 1814,