Born Today! 25.04.2024

Johann Heinrich Buttstett (also Buttstedt, Buttstädt) (25 April 1666 – December 1, 1727) was a German Baroque organist and composer. Although he was Johann Pachelbel's most important pupil and one of the last major exponents of the south German organ tradition, Buttstett is best remembered for a dispute with Johann Mattheson.

Giovanni Battista or Giambattista Martini, O.F.M. Conv. (24 April 1706 – 3 August 1784), also known as Padre Martini, was an Italian Conventual Franciscan friar, who was a leading musician, composer, and music historian of the period and a mentor to Mozart.

Giovanni Marco Rutini (25 April 1723 – 22 December 1797) was an Italian composer.

Pasquale Anfossi (5 April 1727 – February 1797) was an Italian opera composer. Born in Taggia, Liguria, he studied with Niccolò Piccinni and Antonio Sacchini, and worked mainly in London, Venice and Rome. He wrote more than 80 operas, both opera seria and opera buffa, although he concentrated on church music, especially oratorios, during his last years. Anfossi died in Rome in 1797.

Fedele Fenaroli (25 April 1730, Lanciano – 1 January 1818, Naples) was an Italian composer and music educator. Fenaroli entered the Conservatorio di Santa Maria di Loreto, one of the Music conservatories of Naples, becoming a pupil of Francesco Durante. In 1762 he was appointed Maestro di Cappella. Among his students were many celebrated Italian composers, such as Domenico Cimarosa, Nicola Antonio Zingarelli, and Saverio Mercadante. Giuseppe Verdi was a second-generation student, as his teacher, Vincenzo Lavigna, was a student of Fenaroli. Fenaroli wrote several treatises on music, which were widely used during the nineteenth century. As a composer, he wrote mainly sacred music.

Marco Enrico Bossi (25 April 1861 – 20 February 1925) was an Italian organist, composer, improviser and teacher.

Rudolf Dittrich (25 April 1861 – 16 January 1919) was an Austrian musician. He is noted for his role in bringing western music to Japan during the late 19th century.

Jean-Charles Nouguès (25 April 1875 – 28 August 1932) was a French composer of operas. Born in Bordeaux, Nouguès was from a wealthy family, and in his youth he received little formal musical training. His first opera, Le Roi de Papagey, was written when he was only sixteen; after further study in Paris, he composed a second, Yannha, which was premiered in Bordeaux in 1905. Neither this nor 1904's Thamyris had much success. In 1905, Nouguès gained some notice with his incidental music for a production of Maurice Maeterlinck's play La Mort de Tintagiles at the Théâtre des Mathurins in Paris. 1909 was the year of Nouguès' greatest success, the opera Quo Vadis, with a libretto by Henri Caïn based on the novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz. Quo Vadis premiered in Nice and was soon taken to Paris; from there it went on to London and Milan. The work was given its American premiere in 1911 at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, by the Philadelphia-Chicago Company under the direction of Cleofonte Campanini; Maggie Teyte sang the female lead, and the work was also seen in Chicago and Philadelphia. Quo Vadis found great favor with the critics; Reynaldo Hahn and Francis Casadesus were among those to praise the music, while others felt that much of the work's success may have been due to the strength of the cast. In 1910 Nouguès composed L'auberge rouge and Chiquito, set in the Basque country, which was first presented at the Opéra-Comique in Paris; 1912 saw La Danseuse de Pompéï presented by the same company. L'Aigle was premiered in Rouen that same year; during World War I it is said it crossed the English Channel and was staged in Britain as The French Eagle. Also in 1912 Nouguès composed Les Frères Danilo, which appears to have been commissioned by Pathé Records as the first opera written specifically for the gramophone. By 1914, Nouguès was beginning to fall out of favor with critics; upon the premiere of La vendetta at the Gaîté Lyrique, critic Edmond Stoullig wrote that he felt the composer would benefit from writing far less music. Nevertheless, he went on composing, writing operettas in the 1920s. These had less success than his earlier work, although he found some favor with his incidental music for Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, which as late as 1938 was used for a television presentation of the play. Nouguès died in Paris in 1932. Little of his music has been committed to disc; Les Frères Danilo has been rereleased by Marston Records, but otherwise all that is known is a handful of excerpts from Quo Vadis recorded by Armand Crabbé and Mattia Battistini. David Mason Greene also indicates that some selections from L'Aigle were recorded in the early days of recorded sound.

Jaroslav Doubrava (April 25, 1909 in Chrudim – October 2, 1960 in Prague) was a Czech composer, painter, and pedagogue. He studied in the Prague Conservatory with Otakar Jeremiáš. His works are typified by somber, yet dramatic, music in the Romantic style. His Third Symphony' (1957) and ballet Don Quijote (1955) are some of his most popular works. Doubrava was heavily influenced by Bohemian and Moravian folklore as seen in his opera, Ballad on Love (1960). Doubrava was also well known for his satires, especially the ballet King Lávra (1951), Lazy Honza and The Christening of St. Vladimir.

Franco Mannino (25 April 1924 – 1 February 2005) was an Italian film composer, pianist, opera director, playwright and novelist, born in Palermo. He was married with Uberta Visconti di Modrone, a sister to the film and stage director Luchino Visconti (se below). He made his debut as pianist at the age of 16. He conducted the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Canada between 1982 and 1986, among the others. In all he wrote more than 440 compositions including opera, ballet, oratorios, symphonies, chamber music and music for the theatre. In addition there was his music for more than a hundred films by some of the best-known directors of his day, including Luchino Visconti with whom he collaborated several times, including such films as Death in Venice (conductor) and Ludwig (piano and arrangements for orchestra of music by Richard Wagner: mainly "Porazzi-theme" and excerpts from Tristan and Isolde), Conversation Piece and L'Innocente, both conducting original composed material. His 1963 opera Il diavolo in giardino, from a libretto by Visconti (and collaborators) based on a Thomas Mann short story, was presented at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo in February. Another of his works, which Visconti directed, was the ballet Mario e il Mago in 1956. He died in Rome in 2005.

Erzsébet Szőnyi (25 April 1924 – 28 December 2019), also Erzsébet Szilágyi, was a Hungarian composer and music teacher. Her works encompass symphonic compositions, chamber music works, art songs, and oratorios. She also wrote numerous stage works including eight operas.

Giorgio Battistelli (born 25 April 1953) is an Italian composer of contemporary classical music. A native of Albano Laziale (province of Rome), he studied at the conservatory in L'Aquila and is a former student of Stockhausen and Kagel. Battistelli has written nearly 20 operas on subjects ranging from Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopaedia to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. His opera CO2, based on Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, premiered at La Scala in 2015. His opera Wake was premiered by the Birmingham Opera Company in March 2018 and is inspired by the story of Lazarus being brought back from the dead. In 1994 he founded with some friends the improvisation group entitled Edgard Varèse and an instrumental ensemble named Beat '72. From 1985 to 1986 he was host of the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst in Berlin. In 1990 he won the SIAE for an opera and in 1993 the Cervo Prize for contemporary music. He was also artistic director of the Cantiere Internazionale d'Arte di Montepulciano, the Orchestra Regionale Toscana. He is currently director of the music section of the Venice Biennale. In 2007 he was artistic director of the Jerwood Opera Writing Programme hosted by Aldeburgh Music. His music is published by Ricordi and recordings available on Stradivarius.