Famous composers' birthdays and fantastic facts about them (molto emphasis on fantastic, non troppo emphasis on facts). If you want to know something worthwhile about your favorite composer, well then, you're on-line--go look them up. Otherwise, if you just want to kill time, click away here.
In the "not so coincidentally" department: Lionel Hampton, jazz music legend, and Tito Puente, Latin music legend, were both born today, although not at the same hospital. And not in the same town. And finally, not so coincidentally, not even the same year! Wow!
The composer Georg Michael Telemann born today in 1748. His claim to fame as a composer is a famous relative.
Annie opened on Broadway in 1977, forever raising the vocal range of aspiring young girl actors. Some B'way shows are dogs, this one featured a dog in the show, forever raising the vocal range of aspiring puppies.
Sergey Prokofiev born this day in the Russian Empire. He, of course, the prolific composer of, among other prolific works, Peter in the Wolf, a musical story in which all the characters are musical instruments:
Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle, a minor army office during the French Revolution, wrote the lyrics and music to La Marseillaise, the national anthem of France, on this date, back in 1792. It immediate went to #5 on Billboard's Top Revolutionary National Anthems list and stayed there for five weeks.
Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky, influential entrepreneur of the Russian Empire, born today in 1840. He of course is famous for his fashionable line of Nutcrackers, "chic, yet practical". They are still in high demand today and marketed in what is probably the long-lived product-placement media deal ever.
Beethoven (you know, Wolfgang Amadeus Beethoven. Sheesh, do I have to spell it out for you?) composed the musical hit Fur Elise today in 1810. It immediately rose to #6 in the charts on the Vienna Country-Pop-Crossover charts and stayed there for the next six weeks. Freaky, huh, all those sixes? Wouldn't it be something if Elise turned out to be six years old, as well? Wow, shades of Rosewell!
Lonnie Donegan born in Glascow in 1931. Lonnie was, as I'm sure you know, considered the King of Skiffle in his time. Skiffle is, as I'm sure you're aware, a kind of folksy, bluesy, countryish music that was big stuff in the U.K. in the fifties. (That would be "nineteen fifties" for all you transplanted earthlings looking at this article from the comfort of your Mars-based mobile home/spacecraft sometime in the 22nd century...Where was I?)
Big news in music history today (I always say that). The first performance of Beethoven's first symphony was on this day in 1800. And the romantic movement is off and running! Actually, ol' Ludwig ushered in a lot of modern sensibilities to our modern world, besides just romanticism, the narcissistic artiste, and loud music. F'rinstance, he regularly wrecked his instruments (fortepianos in his case) on stage during performances. Although, he wrecked them by playing them hard, not by smashing them against amplifiers, which would be hard, if not difficult, to do since they (amplifiers) were not in common use in 1800. (The extension cord had not been invented yet, no way to plug them in!)