1756 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Austrian composer (d.1791); composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, chamber, operatic, and choral music; among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, and his influence on subsequent Western art music is profound; Joseph Haydn wrote that "posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years" (he may have underestimated).
1806 Juan Arriaga – Spanish composer (d.1826); nicknamed ‘the Spanish Mozart’ after he died, because, like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, he was a child prodigy and an accomplished composer who died young; they also shared the same birthday (fifty years apart).
1823 Edouard Lalo – French composer (d.1892); his most celebrated piece is the Symphonie espagnole.
1874 premiere of Modest Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, St. Petersburg; the composer’s only completed opera and his masterpiece; shares with Verdi’s Don Carlo the distinction of having the most complex creative history and the greatest wealth of alternative material.
1885 Jerome Kern – American composer (d.1945); one of the most important American theater composers of the early 20th century, his masterpiece is Show Boat (1927).
1948 Jean-Philippe Collard – French pianist (76 years old); known for his interpretations of the works of Gabriel Fauré and Camille Saint-Saëns.
1970 Emmanuel Pahud – Swiss-born French flutist (54 years old); at 22 became the youngest member of the Berlin Philharmonic and its principal flutist; gave the first performance of Elliott Carter’s Flute Concerto in 2008.