1661 death of Louis Couperin, French composer, harpsichordist, organist, and violist, in Paris (age c.35); his brother, Charles Couperin (1638-1679) was also a composer, as was his nephew, the famous François Couperin (1668-1733).
1853 Henry Granger Hanchett – American organist and inventor of the piano sustaining pedal (d.1918).
1882 unofficial premiere of Johannes Brahms's Piano Trio in C Op 87, at a private home in Bad Ischl; Brahms played a practical joke on the audience by introducing the trio as having been composed by his friend, the composer and pianist Ignaz Brull, who was also in Bad Ischl at the time; official premiere occurred in Frankfurt on December 29 that year, with Brahms at the piano.
1936 Gilbert Amy – French composer and conductor (88 years old); founded the Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France in 1976 and was appointed as first conductor and artistic director.
1949 Imogen Cooper – English pianist (75 years old); participates in chamber music and lieder, especially with baritone Wolfgang Holzmair.
1952 premiere of John Cage's 4'33", for any instrument, in Woodstock, NY; the score instructs the performer not to play the instrument for the duration of the title, so the piece consists only of the sounds of the environment that the listeners hear while it is “performed”; commonly perceived as "four minutes thirty-three seconds of silence"; it’s even been performed by full orchestras, complete with conductor.
1955 Bernarda Fink – Argentine mezzo-soprano (69 years old); received the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art in 2005.