Today's Birthdays

André Campra (1660-1744)
Michel Pignolet de Montéclair (1667-1737)
Sir Hamilton Harty (1879-1949)
Alex North (1910-1991)
Yvonne Minton (1938)
Lillian Watson (1947)
Andrew Penny (1952)

and

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1891)
Samuel Butler (1835-1902)
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)
Cornell Woolrich (1903-1968)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1885 took place the American premiere of Bruckner's Symphony No. 3 in d, at the Old Metropolitan Opera House in New York, during an afternoon public rehearsal by the New York Symphony Society, with the 23-year old Walter Damrosch. The “official” concert occurred the following evening. This was the first time any Bruckner Symphony was performed in America. In his Preface to a 1942 book by Werner Wolff entitled “Anton Bruckner: Rustic Genius,” Damrosch incorrectly states it was Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony (in E-flat Major, subtitled “Romantic”) that he performed on Dec. 5, 1885.