Gustav Mahler knew that no great composer wrote more than nine symphonies

[Bryn]

So starts the blurb for tonight's Performance on 3. So much for the likes of Haydn and Mozart then.

[Cellini]

I'm afraid at 8.00pm I've pressed the off switch! Andante Comodo - more like Adagio ... I'm afraid this orchestra and its conductor are extremely third rate!

[Bryn]

What a shame you should miss out on a Rondo-burlesco that is second to none*, Cellini.




*nth, maybe, but not 2nd.

[Cellini]

I heard a story once that Mahler HAD written a tenth, but its a load of lies.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Bruckner wrote 10¾. That is reasonably clear.
But what about Schubert. Is it 7½, 8, 9 or 10?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I heard a story once that Mahler HAD written a tenth, but its a load of lies.

He wrote multiple 10ths.

[Cellini]

And lots of consecutive 5ths? But he loved thirds and sixths.

[Cellini]

Schubert was 15 not out. Sometimes even silly mid on ...

[Bryn]

I heard a story once that Mahler HAD written a tenth, but its a load of lies.

Oh he certanly wrote a tenth. It's just that he called it the 9th.

[Roehre]

Oh he certanly wrote a tenth. It's just that he called it the 9th.

Not counting the Nordic symphony, his unnumbered symphony in a-minor and possibly another symphony not identical with the previous two, but unknown to us as well.......

Mahler cannot have known that Dvorak composed nine symphonies (as only five had been published and numer one had gone astray and didn't resurface until the 1930s, and the number of Schubert symphonies during his lifetime was estimated as eight (the great C-major D.944 is numbered in the Gesamtausgabe as no.7, and in German speaking countries most of the time until recently numbered as such)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

and the number of Schubert symphonies during his lifetime was estimated as eight (the great C-major D.944 is numbered in the Gesamtausgabe as no.7, and in German speaking countries most of the time until recently numbered as such)

Yes, the Great C major has moved around somewhat, from 7 to 9 (and now 8 in Germany). But then there are at least 3 unfinished symphonies which complicates matters a little.

[Petrushka]

There is at least no doubt how many symphonies Beethoven wrote so if this oft-quoted story of Mahler's supposed superstition has any basis in fact then he could only have been thinking of Beethoven or possibly Bruckner. I haven't got as far as this in the de la Grange biography but it would not surprise me if he debunks this myth. Is it another of the very many inventions of Alma, perhaps? This story has always sounded a bit unlikely to me anyway.

[Ferretfancy]

Mozart? Haydn? Leif Segerstam?

[Serial_Apologist]

That also puts Havergal Brian in the "not great" department, then.

[Bryn]

I think you might find that Segerstam is somewhat post-Mahler. The others are mentioned in the opening message.