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",
Beethoven and his contemporaries other details of a meeting. When Beethoven was on his deathbed in 1827, Schindler, to give Beethoven some distractions, gave him manuscripts for a number of Schubert's songs. Beethoven was, according to Schindler, astonished at the quantity and quality of what he saw, claiming that "Truly in Schubert there is the divine spark." Schubert would visit Beethoven on his death bed more than once. On one visit, when Schubert called with Anselm Hüttenbrenner, Beethoven remarked, "You, Anselm have my mind, but Franz has my soul." Schubert would serve as a torch-bearer at Beethoven's funeral. Johann Sedlatzek (1789-1866) was a flute