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December 21

1850 Zdenek Fibich – Czech composer and music critic (d.1900); much less well-known contemporary of Smetana and Dvorák who never fully embraced Czech nationalism as his more famous colleagues did.

1890 first performance of the final version of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 3 in Vienna, Hans Richter conducting; dedicated to Richard Wagner and sometimes known as the ‘Wagner Symphony’.

1934 first performance of Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kijé Suite on a Moscow radio broadcast; exists in two versions, one using a baritone voice and the other using a saxophone; based on score for a satirical film lampooning bureaucracies.

1940 Frank Zappa – American musician, bandleader, songwriter, composer, recording engineer, record producer, and film director (d.1993); while in his teens, acquired a taste for 20th-century classical composers such as Edgard Varèse, Igor Stravinsky, and Anton Webern, along with 1950s rhythm and blues music; began writing classical music in high school.

1944 Michael Tilson Thomas – American conductor, pianist and composer (79 years old); music director of the San Francisco Symphony, and artistic director of the New World Symphony which he founded in Florida in 1987; leads a series of education programs titled Keeping Score which offers insight into the lives and works of great composers.

1953 András Schiff – Hungarian pianist and conductor (70 years old); an outspoken critic of the Hungarian government of Viktor Orbán, stating in January 2012 that he would never again set foot in his native country.

1972 Erwin Schrott – Uruguayan bass-baritone (51 years old); particularly known for his interpretation of the title role in Mozart's Don Giovanni; until 2013, the partner of the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko.