1594 death of Orlande de Lassus – Franco-Flemish composer (born 1530, possibly 1532); known by various names (Orlandus Lassus, Orlando di Lasso, Roland de Lassus, or Roland de Lattre); one of the three most famous and influential musicians in Europe at the end of the 16th century (the other two being Palestrina and Victoria).
1730 Antonio Sacchini – Italian opera composer (d.1786); his early death (at age 56) was blamed on his disappointment over the apparent failure of his opera Œdipe à Colone; ironically, the opera was revived the following year and quickly became one of the most popular in the 18th-century French repertoire.
1835 Nicolai Rubinstein – Russian composer, pianist and conductor (d.1881); younger brother of Anton Rubinstein; probably best known for his severe criticism of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 when it was submitted to him for consideration in 1874, though he changed his mind, and conducted the work at the Paris Exposition in 1878.
1876 premiere of Léo Delibes' ballet Sylvia at the Palais Garnier in Paris; successful productions waited until 1952 when a revival choreographed by Sir Frederick Ashton popularized the ballet.
1921 first performance of the violin-and-orchestra version of Ralph Vaughan Williams's The Lark Ascending in London; inspired by George Meredith's 122-line poem of the same name about the skylark.
1927 premiere of Reinhold Glière’s ballet The Red Poppy in Moscow's Bolshoi Theater; the most famous excerpt is the Sailors Dance, better known as the 'Russian' Sailors Dance.
1952 premiere of the Americanized version of Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera translated by Mark Blitzstein at Brandeis University as part of the first Festival of the Creative Arts, with Leonard Bernstein conducting.
1962 premiere of Stravinsky's biblical drama The Flood on CBS Television conducted by Robert Craft and choreographed by George Balanchine; in the cast, Laurence Harvey as the Narrator, Sebastian Cabot as Noah, and Elsa Lanchester as Noah's Wife (which Lanchester played with a Cockney accent).
1982 Lang Lang – Chinese pianist (43 years old); his father Lang Guoren is also a musician but he specializes in the erhu, a traditional Chinese stringed instrument.