Jazz compser Charles Mingus on a US postage stamp

Some music for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day...

Joseph Schwantner (b. 1943): New Morning for the World (Daybreak of Freedom)
National Symphony; Leonard Slatkin, cond.
BMG Classics 68692
&
Charles Mingus (1922-1979): Better Get It In Your Soul, from Epitaph
ensemble; Gunther Schuller, cond.
Columbia 45428

Births:
1893 — English composer Ivor Novello (née David Ivor Davies), in Cardiff;
1909 — American composer Elie Siegmeister, in New York City;

Premieres:
1890 — Tchaikovsky: ballet, "Sleeping Beauty," in St. Petersburg;

French composer Germaine Tailleferre

Music by two noteworthy women composers...

Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983): Violin Sonata No. 1
Franco Mezzena, vn; Bruno Mezzena, p.
Dynamic 223 (distributed by Qualiton Imports)
&
Janika Vandevelde (b. 1955): Genesis V
Minneapolis Guitar Quartet
Albany Troy-207

Collet's original article was entitled "The five Russians, the six French, and Monsieur Satie." The five Russians referred to were the leading Nationalist composers such as Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, and the analogy was deliberate: French music, as the writer Jean Cocteau had demanded, must be liberated from all foreign influence — especially German. Wagner and Strauss should no longer hold French composers in reverential awe, or Stravinsky either, or even that dangerous French maverick, Debussy.

"Les Six" was never really a formal grouping. It was more of an artificial concept in Collet's mind. In any case, its members considered themselves disbanded within a year, and went their own ways, with only Poulenc continuing to follow at all faithfully the principles that had supposedly held them together.

Births:
1905 — Spanish composer Ernesto Halffter, in Madrid;
1934 — American composer Richard Wernick, in Boston, Massachusetts;
1943 — English composer and teacher Gavin Bryars, in Goole, Yorkshire;
1943 — English composer Brian Ferneyhough, in Coventry;

Premieres:
1739 — Handel: oratorio, "Saul," in London;
1869 — Borodin: Symphony No. 1, in St. Petersburg;

Albert Einstein performing as a violinist at a charity recital in a Berlin synagogue in the early 1930s

Einstein in recital — and on the opera stage...

J.S. Bach (1685-1750): Double Concerto in d, S. 1043
Oscar Shumsky, John Tunnell, vn; Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Nimbus 7031
&
Philip Glass (b. 1937): Violin Concerto
Adele Anthony, vn; Ulster Orchestra; Takuo Yuasa, cond.
Naxos American Classics 8.559056

Births:
1706 — American statesman, composer of string quartets, publisher and inventor of the glass harmonica Benjamin Franklin, in Boston, Massachusetts;
1712 — English composer John Stanley, in London;
1734 — Belgian composer François-Joseph Gossec, in Vergnies;
1907 — Dutch composer Henk Badings, in Bandung, Java;
1927 — American composer Donald Erb, in Youngstown, Ohio;
1934 — Canadian-born American composer, conductor and clarinetist Sydney Hodkinson, in Winnipeg, Manitoba;

Music and photography intersect in New York and California ...

Julián Orbón (1925-1991): Pavana (Luis de Milan), from Tres Versiones Sinfónicas
Simón Bolívar Symphony; Eduardo Mata, cond.
Dorian 90179

Former Life magazine photographer Bruce Davidson's group shot of 52 composers appeared in the Oct. 31, 1999 edition of the New York Times.

Births:
1835 — Russian composer César Cui, in Vilnius, Lithuania;
1841 — French composer Emmanuel Chabrier, in Ambert, Puy-de-Dôme;
1903 — German-born English composer and conductor Berthold Goldschmidt, in Hamburg;

Wolfgang Mozart

Music with a sense of place — in name, at least...

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Symphony No. 38 in D, S. 504 (Prague)
Prague Chamber Orchestra; Sir Charles Mackerras, cond.
Telarc 80148
&
Darius Milhaud (1892-1974): Symphony No. 10, Op. 382 (Music for Oregon)
Basel Radio Symphony; Alun Francis, cond.
CPO 999 354

Births:
1676 — English composer John Weldon, in Chichester;
1884 — French conductor and composer Albert Wolff, in Paris;
1903 — German composer Boris Blacher, in Niu-chang, China;

Premieres:
1853 — Verdi: opera, "Il trovatore," in Rome;
1884 — Massenet: opera, "Manon," at the Opéra-Comique, Paris;