12-10: The Band : NY Palladium 1976 - Henry Cowell Piano Music : Cowell 1963 - Heifetz : Sibelius Concerto 1935 / Tchaikovsky Concerto 1937 - Il Giardino di Giulio Caccini 2003

Not shown above: Friedrich Franz Hurka, Dieudonné-Pascal Pieltain, Mariano Obiols i Tramullas & Pablo Hernández y Salces

1618 – Giulio Caccini (Italian composer, lutenist, gambist, harpist, singer, author & teacher, a pioneer of opera)
1665 – Tarquinio Merula (Italian composer, organist & violinist)
1805 – Friedrich Franz Hurka [František Václav Hůrka] (Czech tenor & composer, active in Germany)
1826 – Benedikt Schack [Žák] (Czech tenor & composer, active in Austria, friend of Mozart & creator of Tamino in Die Zauberflöte)
1833 – Dieudonné-Pascal Pieltain (Belgian violinist & composer)
1877 – Federico Ricci (Italian composer & teacher, brother of Luigi)
1888 – Mariano Obiols i Tramullas (Spanish composer)
1910 – Pablo Hernández y Salces (Spanish composer)
1921 – Viktor Jacobi (Hungarian operetta composer)
1938 – Mario Pilati (Italian composer, music critic & teacher)
1939 – Wilhelm Grosz (Austrian composer, pianist & conductor, active in the UK & US, "Red Sails in the Sunset")
1965 – Henry Cowell (American composer, music theorist, pianist & teacher)
1966 – Boris Koutzen (Russian-born American violinist, composer & teacher)
1967 – Brasílio Itiberê da Cunha Luz (Brazilian folklorist, composer & author)
1967 – Otis Redding (American soul singer, songwriter, producer, arranger & talent scout)
1967 – Ron Caldwell, Carl Cunningham, Phalin Jones & Jimmy King (members of American R&B group the Bar-Kays)
1969 – Franco Capuana (Italian conductor)
1969 – Leigh Harline (American film composer, "When You Wish Upon A Star")
1982 – Roy Webb (American film composer, The Magnificent Ambersons, I Walked with a Zombie, Notorious, Mighty Joe Young)
1986 – Kate Wolf (American folk singer, songwriter & guitarist)
1987 – Jascha Heifetz (Lithuanian-born American violinist)
1991 – Headman Shabalala (South African singer, Ladysmith Black Mambazo)
1994 – George van Renesse (Dutch pianist & conductor)
1995 – Darren Robinson [Buffy, Buff Love, DJ Doctor Nice] (American rapper & beatboxer, The Fat Boys)
1996 – John Duffey (American bluegrass singer & mandolinist, The Country Gentlemen)
1997 – Violet Carlson (American comedienne, actress, singer & dancer)
1999 – Rick Danko (Canadian rock & folk bass guitarist, singer, songwriter & multi-instrumentalist, The Band)
2008 – Didith Reyes (Filipino actress & singer)

This is getting really difficult. And I don't just mean finding links for you. (Some of the hosts have now gone into a kind of lockdown mode, where only those who uploaded a file can download it.) I'm talking about all the carnage, too! Heifetz, Otis Redding and most of his backing band, Henry Cowell... Rick Danko... it smarts something awful.

11-19: Badfinger Vancouver 1974 - Schubert Symphonies : 5 Wand 2001 | 6 Suitner 1986 | 8 Beecham 1937 | 9 Stock 1940 - Shirley Bergeron : French Rocking Boogie 1957-1969

1630 – Johann Hermann Schein (German composer & singer)
1785 – Bernard de Bury (French court composer & harpsichordist)
1804 – Pietro Guglielmi (Italian opera composer)
1825 – Jan Václav Voříšek (Czech composer, pianist & organist)
1828 – Franz Peter Schubert (Austrian composer & pianist)
1854 – Alberich Zwyssig (Swiss Cistercian monk, choirmaster & composer, Swiss National Anthem)
1928 – Achille Simonetti (Italian violinist & composer, active in England & Ireland)
1929 – Arthur H. Mann (English organist, choirmaster, composer & editor of Church of England Hymnal)
1931 – Frederic Cliffe (English composer)
1974 – George Brunies (American jazz trombonist)
1983 – Tom Evans (English bass guitarist, singer & songwriter, Badfinger)
1995 – Shirley Bergeron (American Cajun singer & steel guitarist)
1995 – Bruce Trent (British pop singer, songwriter & actor)
2004 – George Canseco (Filipino songwriter)
2004 – Terry Melcher (American record producer; son of Doris Day)

Schubert! Lionheart of the Lied, King of Kammermusik, Schubert! None of those for you today, however... I hope you'll be satisfied with a healthy swath of his symphonies, which, while not quite Beethovenian in stature, contain their own unique glories. Speaking of Beethoven, Schubert was quite in awe of him, such that - even though they both resided for years at the same time in Vienna - the shy, generation-younger composer only rarely approached the older master. Beethoven apparently held quite a high opinion of Schubert's music, however.

Imagine, if you will, that Schubert had not died so very young... that he had lived to as old an age as Beethoven did, into his 50s, instead of expiring from syphilis at the age of 31, with his death coming just the very year after Beethoven's. Imagine a Schubert who passed away, say, in 1852 instead of 1828. We would certainly not think of Schubert as a Classical-period composer in that case, or even as a composer who was transitional between the Classical and Romantic periods. I believe we would think of him as a bona fide Romantic composer. We'd tend to mention him less often in the same breath as Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, and group him more often along with Schumann, Chopin, and Mendelssohn.

And now, just think of the music composed by the middle-aged Schubert. The titanic symphonies and masses, the increasingly weird and sublime song cycles and chamber works. Maybe some operas and oratorios! It's one of the great "what ifs" of music history, and of course it's a totally pointless hypothetical. For Franz Schubert, short-lived as he was, is already among the ten or so greatest composers who ever lived. And that's enough!

08-24: Don Byas & Mary Lou Williams 1953 - Mozart Abduction from the Seraglio Beecham Simoneau 1956 - Antonio Paoli 1909 Verdi - Albert Sammons 1916 Vieuxtemps - Leo Blech 1931 Brahms

Pretty darned close to chronological. Tagged image here.

1712 – Thomas Bullis (Scottish composer & organist)
1724 – Andreas Kneller (German composer & organist)
1804 – Valentin Adamberger [Adamonti] (German operatic tenor)
1817 – Nancy Storace (English operatic soprano)
1829 – Benjamin Jacob (English organist, conductor & composer)
1840 – Joseph Waast Aubert Nonot (French harpsichordist, organist & composer)
1841 – Karl Friedrich Curschmann (German composer & singer)
1932 – Gheorghe Cucu (Romanian composer, conductor & folklorist)
1946 – Antonio Paoli (Puerto Rican operatic tenor & boxer)
1949 – Hermann Devriès (French operatic baritone)
1957 – Albert Sammons (English violinist & composer)
1958 – Leo Blech (German composer & conductor)
1962 – Henry Ley (English organist, composer & teacher)
1964 – Maurice Schoemaker (Belgian composer)
1972 – Don Byas (American jazz tenor saxophonist, settled in France & Holland)
1973 – Sláva Vorlová [Mira Kord] (Czech composer & pianist)
1976 – Michael Head (English composer, pianist, organist & singer)
1978 – Louis Prima (American jazz & pop singer, trumpeter & bandleader)
1979 – Ernst Gruber (Austrian operatic tenor)
1985 – Paul Creston (American composer)
1988 – Kenneth Leighton (English composer & pianist)
1992 – Larrie Londin (American rock & country session & road drummer, Journey, Elvis, et al.)
1999 – Alexandre Lagoya (Egyptian-born Greek-Italian classical guitarist & boxer)
2005 – Kaleth Morales (Colombian vallenato singer, songwriter & guitarist)
2005 – Harold "Hal" Kalin (American pop singer, The Kalin Twins, "When")
2006 – Léopold Simoneau (French operatic lyric tenor)

Write-up pending... but it's going to be a good one... a great one... an exciting one, I can feel it...