Year 1892 (MDCCCXCII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar and a leap year starting on Wednesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar.
Jean Sibelius ( pronunciation (help·info); 8 December 1865 – 20 September 1957) was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period. His music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."
The core of Sibelius's oeuvre is his set of seven symphonies. Like Beethoven, Sibelius used each successive work to further develop his own personal compositional style. His works continue to be performed frequently in the concert hall and are often recorded.
In addition to the symphonies, Sibelius's best-known compositions include Finlandia, the Karelia Suite, Valse triste, the Violin Concerto in D minor and The Swan of Tuonela (one of the four movements of the Lemminkäinen Suite). Other works include pieces inspired by the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala; over 100 songs for voice and piano; incidental music for 13 plays; the opera Jungfrun i tornet (The Maiden in the Tower); chamber music; piano music; Masonic ritual music; and 21 separate publications of choral music.
Guillaume Lekeu (January 20, 1870 – January 21, 1894) was a Belgian composer of classical music.
Lekeu, who was born in Verviers, Belgium, took his first lessons at the conservatoire in that city. In 1879, his parents moved to Poitiers, France. There, he finished school while he continued his music studies autodidactically. At the age of 15, he composed his first piece.
In 1888, his family settled down in Paris where Lekeu became a student of César Franck. After Franck's death, Vincent d'Indy became his new teacher. He obtained in 1891 a second prize in the Belgian Prix de Rome for his cantata Andromède.
The famous violin virtuoso Eugène Ysaÿe, who had been friendly with Franck, asked Lekeu to write for him a violin sonata. Ysaÿe played this composition for the first time in March 1893, and it remains Lekeu's most popular piece. At the age of 23, Lekeu fell ill with typhoid fever and died in Angers only one day after his 24th birthday. He was buried in a suburb of Verviers.
Lekeu composed about 50 works. Several of them have been recorded a number of times, notably the violin sonata. His style shows influences of Franck, Wagner and Beethoven, though he was never a mere imitator of those masters. He used cyclic principles; that is to say, themes in his works will often recur from movement to movement, as they do in a good many of Franck's and d'Indy's compositions. In general, Lekeu is regarded as a highly talented composer who died far too young.
Marshal Josip Broz Tito (Serbo-Croatian pronunciation: [jɔ̂sip brɔ̂ːz tîtɔ]; born Josip Broz; Cyrillic: Јосип Броз Тито; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman, serving in various roles from 1945 until his death in 1980. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, due to his successful economic and diplomatic policies, Tito was seen by most as a benevolent dictator, and was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad. Viewed as a unifying symbol, his internal policies successfully maintained the peaceful coexistence of the nations of the Yugoslav federation. He gained international attention as the chief leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, working with Jawaharlal Nehru of India and Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt.
Josip was born as the seventh child of Franjo and Marija Broz in the village of Kumrovec within Austria-Hungary (modern-day Croatia). Drafted into the army, he distinguished himself, becoming the youngest Sergeant Major in the Austro-Hungarian Army. After being seriously wounded and captured by the Russians, Josip was sent to a work camp in the Ural Mountains. He participated in the October Revolution, and later joined a Red Guard unit in Omsk. Upon his return home, Broz found himself in the newly established Kingdom of Yugoslavia, where he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.
Alexander Zemlinsky or Alexander von Zemlinsky (October 14, 1871, Vienna – March 15, 1942, Larchmont, New York) was an Austrian composer, conductor, and teacher.
Zemlinsky was born in Vienna to a highly multicultural family. Zemlinsky's grandfather, Anton Semlinski, immigrated from Žilina, Hungary (now in Slovakia) to Austria and married an Austrian woman. Both were from staunchly Roman Catholic families, and Alexander's father, Adolf, was raised as a Catholic. Alexander's mother was born in Sarajevo to a Sephardic Jewish father and a Bosnian Muslim mother. Alexander's entire family converted to the religion of his grandfather, Judaism, and Zemlinsky was born and raised Jewish. His father added an aristocratic "von" to his name, though neither he nor his forebears were ennobled. He also began spelling his surname with a "Z."
Alexander studied the piano from a young age. He played the organ in his synagogue on holidays, and was admitted to the Vienna Conservatory in 1884. He studied piano with Anton Door, winning the school's piano prize in 1890. He continued his studies until 1892, studying theory with Robert Fuchs and composition with Johann Nepomuk Fuchs and Anton Bruckner. At this time he began writing music.