Mahler's Symphony No. 9

During a period of both personal tragedy and momentous achievement, the Ninth Symphony is the last score Mahler completed. Some part of him would have wanted it so. With Beethoven’s Ninth and Bruckner’s unfinished Ninth in mind, he entertained a deep-rooted superstition about symphonies and the number nine. But for all the annihilating poignancy [with] which this symphony ends, Mahler cannot have meant it as a farewell. Within days of completing it, he plunged into composing a Tenth, which he never finished before his death in 1911.