#ClassicsaDay #Curseofthe9th Week 1
By Ralph Graves
This month the Classics a Day team takes on the “Curse of the 9th.” Beethoven wrote his ninth symphony and died. Since then, the Curse of the Ninth has circulated through the classical music world. Mahler sincerely believed in it. He wrote nine numbered symphonies and died. As did Bruckner, Schubert, Dvorak, and Vaughan Williams.
But how real is the curse? The Classics a Day team challenges folks to post Symphony No. 10s by composers who followed Beethoven.
And it turns out there are quite a lot of them.
Here are my posts for the first week of #Curseofthe9th.
10/02/23 Louis Spohr (1784-1859): Symphony No. 10 in E-flat major
Spohr was well-known as a symphonist in his day. Although he did survive after writing his 9th symphony (unlike his colleague Beethoven), his 10 works in the genre are now largely forgotten.
10/03/23 Joachim Raff (1822-1882): Symphony No. 10 “To Autumn Time”
This Swiss-born composer handily survived writing his 9th symphony and lived for another 4 years. During that time he completed his 10th and was working on his 11th when he died.
10/04/23 Alfred Hill (1870–1960): Symphony No. 1 in C major
Hill was born in Australia but spent most of his life in New Zealand. He completed his 9th Symphony in 1957. He lived three years after that and wrote three additional symphonies.
10/05/23 Nikolai Myaskovsky (1881-1950): Symphony No. 10 in F minor, Op. 30
This Soviet composer moved from Poland to Russia at a very young age. He wrote his 9th symphony in 1927. He died 23 years later and completed a total of 27 symphonies.
Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959): Symphony No. 10 “Amerindia”
This Brazilian composer finished his 9th symphony in 1951. In the remaining 8 years of his life, he composed three more symphonies, plus many other works.
