Beethoven and Bruckner – their ninth symphony was also their last would both

challenge and irritate any composer with a historic awareness as strong as Gustav
Mahler’s. Mahler certainly regarded himself as successor of the named composers,
for whom the ‘symphony’ was the supreme form of composition. A good measure of
superstition played a role in this perception, but one should also not ignore the fact
that the movement of ‘Symbolism’, which strove to demonstrate connections between
generally understandable symbols and personal destiny, was an important concept in
the poetry and art of the time.

Mahler at first elegantly but consciously, if one is to believe the memoirs of his wife
Alma, avoided the problem by giving the composition following his Symphony No.
8 the title Das Lied von der Erde and only calling it ‘A Symphony for one Tenor and
one Alto’ in the subtitle. But the title page of Symphony No. 9 shows that Mahler
obviously had problems with the number ‘IX’; it is recognizable that the first of the two
symbols was added to the ’X’ at a later time.

The work was composed in a single summer, that of the year 1909 in