There are 365 days in a year, and many, many more composers who’ve gone before us. That means there’s always a composer birthday to celebrate, and there’s always interesting music and stories to discover.
Here are 3 noteworthy composers with July birthdays whose music you probably haven’t heard (or heard of)!
Heinrich Albert
Born July 8, 1604 in central Germany, Heinrich Albert was a member of the Königsberg Poetic Society, and set both his own and his friends’ poetry to music. In some ways, he reminds us of Bach: a cathedral organist who wrote sacred songs, some of which are still sung out of German Protestant hymnals.
Here is one of his delightfully melodic works, Sonatine No. 2 (Adagio con espressivo), performed on guitar:
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Vatroslav Lisinski
Born 1819 in Zagreb, Croatia to a German Jewish family, Lisinski’s given name was Ignatius Fuchs, but he changed it to Vatroslav Lisinski. Interestingly, both names have roughly the same meaning, something like “Fire Fox.”
Lisinski was an early proponent of Illyrism, a movement to unify South-Slavic peoples with language and culture. He is best known for composing the first Croation opera, Love and Malice (1846).
Here in Večer (The Evening), you can hear the Romanticism of his time.
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Rudolf Dellinger
Born in 1857 to a German Bohemian family of instrument makers, Rudolf Dellinger had a rich music education from an early age and is part of the Czech legacy of composers.
In 1889 he wrote the music for an opera named Capitain Fracassa, and its overture is as jolly and tuneful as any Italian composer we’ve ever heard!
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