April 7th, 2017

Tags: composers

April 7, 2017By Interlude0 Comments

Artist Emil Orlik's famous 1902 etching of Gustav Mahler (flickr.com)

Artist Emil Orlik’s famous 1902 etching of Gustav Mahler (flickr.com)

With Halloween approaching, let’s take a minute to explore one of classical music’s more ghoulish superstitions: The Curse of the Ninth. In a nutshell, the curse is the belief that a composer will die after completing their ninth symphony. Even though plenty of composers have written more than nine symphonies (see Haydn), the curse still looms over the music.

Let’s take a haunted stroll down memory lane and remember some victims of the classical world’s answer to the 27 Club. Full story.

James Bennett, II (WQXR) / October 17, 2016

Weblink : http://www.wqxr.org/
Photo credit : http://www.wqxr.org/

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