1687 Francesco Geminiani – Italian composer, violinist and music theorist (d.1761); his significance today is largely due to his 1751 treatise Art of Playing the Violin, the best known summation of the 18th century Italian method of violin playing and a valuable source for the study of late Baroque performance practice.
1830 first performance of Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique (Fantastic Symphony: An Episode in the Life of an Artist) at the Paris Conservatory; a piece of program music par excellence telling the story of an artist gifted with a lively imagination who has poisoned himself with opium in the depths of despair because of hopeless love.
1837 premiere of Hector Berlioz's Requiem Op 5, Paris, conducted by François Habeneck; Berlioz once wrote: "If I were threatened with the destruction of the whole of my works save one, I should crave mercy for the Messe des morts."
1946 José Carreras – Spanish tenor (77 years old); gained fame as one of The Three Tenors along with Plácido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti in a series of mass concerts that began in 1990 and continued until 2003; also known for his humanitarian work as the president of the José Carreras International Leukemia Foundation, which he established following his own recovery from the disease in 1988.
1956 Krystian Zimerman – Polish pianist (67 years old); in 2009, vowed that, in protest of America's placement of a missile defense shield in Poland, he would no longer appear in the United States; he had made a similar comment in 2006, stating he would not return until George W. Bush was out of office; part of his disenchantment may be that with the stepped up security at US airports, it has become increasingly difficult to bring his piano into the country: in incidents in 2001 and 2006, one of his Steinway pianos was completely destroyed and another one damaged by security staff at New York's JFK airport.
1960 Osvaldo Golijov – Argentine composer (63 years old); recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, among other awards and commissions; has been the nexus of several controversies around his works, including missed deadlines and accusations of plagiarism.