1753 Jean-Baptiste Bréval – French cellist and composer (d.1823); wrote the Cello Sonata in C Op 40/1, one of the classics of student cello literature.
1825 first performance of Ludwig van Beethoven's String Quartet No. 15 in Vienna; might have been T. S. Eliot's impetus to write the Four Quartets; Eliot said of the quartet: "I find it quite inexhaustible to study. There is a sort of heavenly or at least more than human gaiety about some of his later things which one imagines might come to oneself as the fruit of reconciliation and relief after immense suffering; I should like to get something of that into verse before I die."
1854 John Philip Sousa – American composer and conductor, the ‘March King’ (d.1932); known primarily for American military and patriotic marches; his Stars and Stripes Forever (1896) is the National March of the United States.
1860 Ignace Jan Paderewski – Polish pianist and composer (d.1941); also, a politician, and spokesman for Polish nationalism; prime minister and foreign minister of Poland in 1919 when he represented Poland at the Paris Peace Conference; substantial composer but became world famous for the Minuet in G Op 14/1.
1902 premiere of Francesco Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur in Milan; features a confusing plot and one of the most inventive (and least realistic) plot devices: death by poisoned violets.
1924 premiere of Leos Janácek's The Cunning Little Vixen (aka Adventures of Vixen Sharp-Ears) in Brno; libretto adapted by the composer from a comic strip by Rudolf Tesnohlídek and Stanislav Lolek; incorporates Moravian folk music and rhythms and is considered a children's opera but with serious and even tragic themes.
1936 first performance of Sergei Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 3 with Philadelphia Orchestra led by Leopold Stokowski; composer was convinced it was one of his best works, despite a lukewarm reception from audiences and critics.
1940 first performance of Florence Price’s Symphony No. 3 in Detroit, by the Michigan WPA Symphony, Valter Poole conducting; First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt attended a rehearsal for this concert and wrote favorably about Price’s Symphony in her national newspaper column My Day a few days later.
1950 first performance of Aaron Copland's Clarinet Concerto in a radio broadcast by the NBC Symphony led by Fritz Reiner with Benny Goodman as soloist; choreographed by Jerome Robbins for the ballet Pied Piper (1951).