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February 14

Valentine's Day       

1602 Francesco Cavalli – Italian opera composer (d.1676); the most influential composer in the rising genre of public opera in mid-17th-century Venice.

1778 Fernando Sor baptized – Spanish guitarist and composer (d. 1839); best known for his guitar compositions, but also composed in a wide range of genres, including opera, orchestra, string quartet, piano and voice; his ballet score Cendrillon (Cinderella) received over a hundred performances.

1867 first performance of the Blue Danube Waltz by Johann Strauss, Jr. (full title: An der schönen blauen Donau – By the Beautiful Blue Danube) at a concert of the Vienna Men's Choral Association; one of the most consistently popular pieces of music in the classical repertoire; when Strauss's stepdaughter, Alice, asked composer Johannes Brahms for his autograph, he wrote down the first bars of this waltz and added (in German): "Alas! Not by Johannes Brahms".

1880 first performance of the original version of Gabriel Fauré’s Piano Quartet No. 1 in Paris at a concert of the Société Nationale de la Musique Français; written after Marianne Viardot, daughter of the well-known singer Pauline Viardot, had broken off her engagement to Fauré, though very little of his distress finds its way into the music.

1934 Michel Corboz – Swiss conductor (died 2 September, 2021); founded the Ensemble Vocal de Lausanne.

1956 Steven Mackey – American composer, guitarist, and music educator (67 years old); wrote a concerto for electric guitar and orchestra (Tuck and Roll) and two works for electric guitar and string quartet (Physical Property and Troubadour Songs).