Memorial Day
1799 Jacques-François-Fromental-Elie Halévy – French composer (d.1862); known today largely for his opera La Juive.
1822 Joachim Raff – German-Swiss composer, teacher and pianist (d.1882); very prolific, and by the end of his life was one of the best-known German composers, though his work is largely forgotten today.
1888 Louis Durey – French composer (d.1979); the least remembered of 'Les Six'; during World War 2, worked with the French Resistance; came to embrace hardline communism and his uncompromising political attitudes hindered his career.
1899 first performance of Ravel's 'fairy overture' Shéhérazade at a Société Nationale concert at the Salle du Nouveau-Thèâtre in Paris; his first work for orchestra, lost for decades until rediscovered in the mid-1970s.
1906 first performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 6, in Essen, with the composer conducting; sometimes called the 'Tragic' Symphony; Alban Berg called it "the only sixth, despite the Pastoral."
1922 Margaret Buechner – German-born American composer (d.1998); wrote Liberty Bell, a piece for chorus and orchestra which incorporates a 1959 recording of the actual bell by Columbia Records.
1928 Thea Musgrave – Scottish composer of opera and concert music (96 years old); has lived in the United States since 1972.