September, the ninth month of the year, has arrived. So this week on the show, we're dressing to the nines, celebrating that number one less than ten, in a show we're calling "Number Nine"
Here are nine pieces for the number nine...
- Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827), Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125 – Beethoven's ninth and final symphony is likely his most ambitious work (and certainly his longest), combining the full forces of a symphony orchestra with choir and soloists to convey the idea of unadulterated joy. Although nearly completely deaf by this time, it was indeed the composer himself who conducted the premiere Ninth Symphony in Vienna. By all accounts, he was a very dramatic conductor, making wild gestures for loud passages, and sinking down towards the floor to show the softer parts of the music. Many anecdotes exist about Beethoven's conducting of the Ninth Symphony, some of which have dubious historical accuracy. But perhaps the most famous of these apocryphal stories is the one recounting how Beethoven continued to conduct after the piece had finished. One of the soloists, in most accounts the mezzo-soprano, had to turn Beethoven around so he could see the cheering crowd.
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- Hector Berlioz (1803–1869), Roman Carnival Overture, Op. 9 –Berlioz composed his Ninth opus "Roman Carnival Overture" in 1844, a decade after the less than successful premiere of his opera Benvenuto Cellini.  The opera tells the story of a sculptor who is struggling to make a living in 16th century Rome. The opera was a flop due to the extreme technical demands Berlioz made on the singers and instrumentalists, and also due to his mix of tragic and comic elements, which didn't suit the Parisian audiences of the day. The "Roman Carnival Overture" shares a number of common elements with its operatic predecessor, beginning with the breakneck pace of the opening allegro. The English horn theme that follows is also lifted from the opera's love duet, showcasing Berlioz's knack for long-winded, irregular melodies. The overture has fared much better than its operatic counterpart, becoming a mainstay of the orchestral repertory.
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- Kurt Weill (1900–1950), and Maxwell Anderson, "September Song" (from Knickerbocker Holiday) – "September Song" was written by Kurt Weill in 1938, reportedly in only a couple of hours for a Broadway show entitled Knickerbocker Holiday. The song was originally sung by Walter Huston, and the small range of the piece was specifically composed for Huston's gruff voice. "September Song" truly entered mainstream culture after it was used in the romantic drama September Affair, a film whose leading character is a concert pianist set to perform Rachmaninoff's second piano concerto. It has since been rediscovered a number of times over the years and used in various films and television programs. It was even the end credit music for the hit BBC show May to December, which of course is a lyric in the first line of the song. So beloved was the tune that the entire Rat Pack individually recorded their own versions of it, including three different versions recorded by Frank Sinatra alone.
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- Franz Schubert (1797–1828), Symphony No. 9 in C ("The Great") – The so-called "Curse of the Ninth" refers to a superstition that composers will die after the completion of their ninth symphony. It happened to Beethoven, the originator of the curse. And nine (or thereabout) also seemed to be the symphonic limit for Mahler, Bruckner, Vaughan William, Dvorak, Schnittke, Arnold, and Louis Spohr. Schubert also falls into this category… sort of. It's true that he did work on his Ninth Symphony (known as his "Great" C Major Symphony) towards the end of his life. But this symphony was known as his Seventh Symphony for years. It only became his ninth symphony when several unfinished symphonic sketches were added to the list, making Schubert's total symphony total 10. Nevertheless, Schubert passed away shortly after his ninth symphony, and only a year after Beethoven. Both composers are currently buried next to one another in the Vienna Central Cemetery, or Wiener Zentralfriedhof.
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- Maury Yeston (b. 1945), Nine – The 1982 musical Nine by Maury Yeston was inspired by the characters and themes from Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8 ½. In both the film and musical, a film director name Guido is struggling with a creativity block and a midlife crisis, thinking back on the women who have shaped his life. Fellini used the number 8 ½ because it was his eighth and a half film as a director-Yeston felt that adding music to the story was like adding another half of an element, hence Nine. Nine was an unexpected hit on Broadway in 1982, directed by Tommy Tune and starring Raul Julia as Guido. It beat out favorites like Dreamgirls and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat for the Tony Award for Best Musical. And at the time Yeston wrote the musical, he was working full time as a music theory professor at Yale University.
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- William Byrd (1543-1623), "Ye Sacred Muses (An Elegy Upon the Death of Thomas Tallis)" – William Byrd held an interesting position in British Renaissance musical life.  He was a Catholic, and composed music for the Catholic Church, at a time when England was staunchly Protestant. He was able to continue to practice his religion and compose in a variety of styles due to Mary Tudor's interest in Latin church music, despite her other reformist views. He also received support from Queen Elizabeth I, in the form of a joint printing license with his teacher Thomas Tallis. When Tallis passed away in 1585, Byrd composed the lament "Ye Sacred Muses" for an ensemble of four viola da gambas and a countertenor. His lyrics evoke the nine Greek Goddesses associated with creative powers, and the final lines of the work are particularly somber. They are repeated several times as the piece concludes, and read "Tallis is dead, and Music dies."
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- Fanny Mendelssohn (1805–1847), Das Jahr: September – Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel was a prolific composer in private, but her conservative family and the constraints of her historical era discouraged her from publishing until the end of her life. "The Year," a suite for solo piano, remained unpublished during her lifetime. Even so, the suit is a more forward-thinking piece of music, with similarities to the style of Liszt and Schumann, than anything her more famous brother Felix Mendelssohn composed. Consisting of a movement for each month, plus a postlude, "The Year" is a music diary that reflects on Fanny's year of travel in Italy with her husband and son. September is one of the simpler movements of the suite, including of a lyrical melody with a wave-like accompaniment. It is the only movement of the collection that was later reworked as a independent art song, one of the many Lieder that Fanny wrote as part of her 460 completed compositions.
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- Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959), Nonetto – Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu suffered from a different kind of "curse of the ninth": he wrote his Nonet-a work for nine instruments-just a few months before he passed away. The scoring of his nonet combines a wind quintet (flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon) with a slightly altered string quartet (violin, viola, cello, and a double bass instead of the more traditional second violin). This was also the same instrumentation as another famous Nonet by composer Louis Spohr, written 100 years earlier. The work brims with the rhythmic energy of Czech and Bohemian folk music, the music of Martinu's homeland. However, because of World War II and the subsequent communist regime in Czechoslovakia, Martinu lived in exile from his homeland for the final 36 years of his life.
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- Nena, "99 Luftballons" ("99 Red Balloons") – The German pop star Nena topped the 1984 pop-charts with her hit song "Neun-und-neunzig Luftballons," better known in English as "99 Red Balloons." The song was inspired by a Rolling Stones concert the band's guitarist attended. At the concert, hundreds of balloons were released, and began to float over in the direction of communist East Berlin. He thought, how would a frightened military react to the sight of unidentified flying objects floating over the Berlin Wall? The song became an unexpected protest song, and turned into a rallying cry for those who challenged increased militarization, NATO missile defense, the Berlin Wall, and the growing conflict of the Cold War. Nena, however, never thought of themselves as a political band, and argued their song was not about the Cold War, but rather just about misunderstanding.
