1729 Padre Antonio Soler baptized – Spanish composer (d.1783); best known for his keyboard sonatas, an important contribution to the harpsichord, fortepiano, and organ repertoire.
1883 Anton Webern – Austrian composer and conductor (d.1945); a member of the ‘Second Viennese School’, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; was shot and killed by an American soldier less than an hour before a curfew was to have gone into effect; the soldier responsible for his death was overcome by remorse and died of alcoholism in 1955.
1908 first performance of Sir Edward Elgar’s Symphony No. 1 at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, England, with the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Hans Richter; critical reception was enthusiastic, and the public response unprecedented: The Musical Times described its "immediate and phenomenal success"’; within just over a year of this premiere, the symphony had been played a hundred times in Britain, continental Europe and the United States.
1911 Nino Rota – Italian composer, pianist, conductor and academic (d.1979); best known for his film scores, notably for the films of Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti; he also composed the music for two of Franco Zeffirelli's Shakespeare films, and for the first two films of Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather trilogy, receiving the Academy Award for Best Original Score for The Godfather Part II (1974).
1914 Irving Fine – American composer (d.1962); member of a close-knit group of Boston composers in the mid-20th century who were sometimes called the ‘Boston Six’ or ‘Boston School’ (other members were Arthur Berger, Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Lukas Foss, and Harold Shapero).
1938 Jose Serebrier – Uruguayan American composer, conductor (86 years old); Composer-in-Residence of the Cleveland Orchestra, 1968-1970; Music Director of the Cleveland Philharmonic, 1968-1971; one of the most recorded conductors of his generation.
1970 Matt Haimovitz – Israeli-born cellist (54 years old); in 2000, he founded his own record label, Oxingale, which has released CD recordings of his own recital programs, as well as music performed by others; in 2010 this label expanded to include a music publishing branch.