For all of those born on this day, best felicitations. Regardless of whether this is your day or not, a good many wonderful musicians share the date. Among them, one of the truly great ones, Johann Sebastian Bach. I could not begin to scratch the surface of his brilliance, so allow me to give you just one snippet, the opening aria of the Goldberg Variations, played here on the harpsichord, the instrument for which it was originally composed:
Glenn Gould stormed onto the stage with his 1955 piano recording of the variations, finished his career with another interpretation in 1981. a year before he died at age 50. This Youtube excerpt includes both, with commentary. For variety's sake, here is another version by the great Tatiana Nikolayeva.
If you have any favorite Bach, feel free to post in the comments.
Proceed below the fold for the rest of the musical birthdays...
Hermann Finck:
Georg Schmezer:
Josef Seger:
Jesus Monasterio:
Modest Mussorgsky:
Bascom Lamar Lunsford:
Son House:
Nikos Skalkottas:
Manolis Chiotis:
Paul Tortelier:
Arthur Grumiaux:
Otis Spann:
Mike Westbrook:
Solomon Burke.
Jamary Oliveira:
Amina Claudine Myers:
Eddie Money:
Bob Bennett.
Nobuo Uematsu:
Guy Chadwick:
Shin Seung-hun:
Edsel Dope:
Jocie Kwok:
Mandy Capristo: