Today is not only poor mistreated Edward Elgar's birthday (his 150th anniversary has been the occasion, once again, for a bit of critical abuse hurled by too many against the really-not-a-lightweight composer -- it's just not his fault if Britain hasn't been exactly churning out composers the way Italy or Germany did). Today it's also another classical music giant's birthday.
Opera Chic, as her readers may know, is a Beethoven 9 nut, and is the proud owner of an impressive shelf of different versions of the glorious Ninth. Among her very uberfavorites, there's Felix Weingartner's 1935 version. And today is the great maestro's (he was Gustav Mahler's successor and Wilhelm "Fufi" Furtwaengler's predecessor as VPO music director) birthday: he was born on June 2, 1863 and passed away in 1942.
Maestro Weingartner, besides being one hottie as a young man, was also a very keen scholar: his essays, especially on Beethoven's music and on conducting, are still an amazing read.