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 (Schubert) all four of Brahms—composed his Sixth Symphony, "La Tragica (in memory of 19 November 1828, the day Schubert died)," as a tribute to Schubert on the centenary of his death. The second movement of Weingartner's symphony is a realization of Schubert's incomplete sketch of the scherzo (seventy years before Newbould's independent effort). In 1928, the 100th anniversary of Schubert's death, Columbia Records held a worldwide competition for the best conjectural completion of the "Unfinished". About 100 completions were submitted, but also a much larger number of original works. The pianist Frank Merrick won the "English Zone" of the competition; his