Music Almanac -
December
Select a day on this month...
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December 1
1822 - Debut of
Franz Liszt
as concert pianist at the age of 11 (Vienna)
December 2
1877 -
Saint-Saëns
'Sampson and Delilah'
- first performance (Weimar, Germany)
1990 - Died, American composer
Aaron Copland
(New York)
December 3
1596 - Happy birthday
violin
craftsman
Nicola Amati
(Cremona, Italy)
1721 - Anna Magdalena Wulcken marries composer
J.S. Bach
(second marriage)
1883 - Birthday of
Anton Webern
- Austrian composer (Vienna)
December 4
1976 - Composer
Benjamin Britten
died (Aldeburgh, England)
December 5
1791 -
Wolfgang Amadé Mozart
, one of the greatest composers, died at age of 35 (Vienna)
1830 - First performance of
Berlioz
'Symphonie Fantastique'
(Paris)
December 6
1920 - Happy birthday to
jazz
composer and pianist
Dave Brubeck
(Concord, CA, USA)
1846 - Premiere of
Berlioz
's
'The Damnation of Faust'
(Paris)
December 7
1562 - Flemish composer
Adrien Willaert
died in Venice
1863 - Happy birthday to composer
Pietro Mascagni
(Livorno, Italy)
December 8
Birth of both Finnish composer
Jean Sibelius
(1865) and Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu (1890)
1939 - Happy birthday to Irish
flutist
James Galway (Belfast)
1980 -
John Lennon
assassinated by obsessed fan in front of his apartment (New York City)
December 9
1882 - Composer
Joaquin Turina
was born (Seville, Spain)
1905 -
Richard Strauss
's opera
'Salome'
first performed (Dresden, Germany)
December 10
1822 - Birth of Belgian composer
César Auguste Franck
(Liege)
1908 - Composer and organist
Olivier Messiaen
born (Avignon, France)
1987 - Great
violinist
Jascha Heifetz died (Covina, CA, USA)
December 11
1803 - Birthday of composer
Hector Berlioz
(Cote-Saint-Andre, France)
December 12
1920 - First performance of
Ravel
's
'La Valse'
(Paris)
December 13
1930 -
Stravinsky
's
'Symphony of Psalms'
- first performance (Brussels, Belgium)
1928 - Walter Damrosch conducts
George Gershwin
's
'An American In Paris'
for the first time (New York)
December 14
1788 -
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
died at age 74 (Hamburg, Germany)
December 15
1888 - First performance of
Rimsky-Korsakov
's
'Scheherazade'
December 16
1770 - Birthday of composer
Ludwig von Beethoven
(Bonn, Germany)
1882 - Composer
Zoltán Kodály
born (Kecskemet, Hungary)
1893 - First performance of
Antonín Dvorák
's
'New World Symphony'
(New York)
1921 - In Algiers, died the French composer
Camille Saint-Saëns
December 17
1749 - Happy Birthday to composer
Domenico Cimarosa
(Aversa, Italy)
1865 -
Schubert
's
'Unfinished' Symphony No. 8
first performed, 42 years after it was finished (Vienna)
December 18
1737 -
Violin
legendary maker
Antonio Stradivari
died (Cremona)
December 19
1882 - Birthday of violinist, conductor and Israeli Philharmonic orchestra founder,
Bronislaw Hubermann
(Poland)
1915 - Birth of great French
singer
Edith Piaf
December 20
1823 - First performance of
Schubert
's opera
'Rosamunde'
(Vienna)
December 21
1890 - First performance of last version of
Bruckner
's
'Third Symphony'
(Vienna)
December 22
1858 - Birth of opera composer
Giacomo Puccini
(Lucca, Italy)
1894 -
Debussy
's
'Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun'
- first performance (Paris)
December 23
1893 - First performance of the fairy tale opera
'Hansel and Gretel'
by
Humperdinck
(Weimar, Germany)
December 24
1453 - English composer
John Dunstable
died in London
1871 - Premiere of
Verdi
's opera
'Aida'
to commemorate the opening of the Suez Canal (Cairo, Egypt)
1935 - Composer
Alban Berg
died (Vienna)
December 25
1835 - Birthday to daughter of
Franz Liszt
, Cosima, who married
Richard Wagner
1931 - First radio broadcast of an entire opera:
Humperdinck
's
'Hansel and Gretel'
from New York
December 26
1936 - First concert of the Israeli Philharmonic orchestra - under the baton of
Arturo Toscanini
(Tel Aviv, Palestine)
December 27
1934 - First performance of
Rachmaninov
's
'Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini'
(New York)
December 28
1937 - In Paris, the French composer
Maurice Ravel
died
1963 - Composer
Paul Hindemith
died today (Frankfurt, Germany)
December 29
1876 - Happy birthday to the Spanish
cellist
Pablo Casals
(Tarragona, Catalonia)
December 30
1904 - Russian composer
Dmitri Kabalevsky
was born in St. Peterburg
1921 - Premiere of
Prokofiev
's opera
'Love For Three Oranges'
conducted by the composer (Chicago)
December 31
1865 - Balakirev conducted the first performance of
Rimsky-Korsakov
's
'Symphony No. 1'
(St. Petersburg, Russia)
MusixCool© By Nadav Dafni