Erich Korngold was born in Brünn, Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Brno, Czech Republic, into a musical family. He showed exceptional musical talent at an early age,

  Latvian-born violin virtuoso Philippe Hirschhorn died on this day in 1996, from a brain tumor, aged just 50. Hirschhorn was based mainly in Belgium but played

Sergei Prokofiev's Cello Concerto in E minor Op. 58 premiered on this day in 1938. The first performance was given by Alexander Melik-Pashayev with the USSR

  A Russian composer, Schnittke was known for his polystylism, where he intermixed serious, dark tones with radically different, often contradictory styles. A winner of the Praemium