it's Rossini's birthday, dagnabit

[calimac]

Maybe it's that the web has gone that much more feature-story-oriented in the last four years, but I can't recall having seen so many stories about people born on Leap Day before.

But none of them mention the most celebrated of them all, the great composer G.A. Rossini. ("Rossini was born five months after his parents got married," reports Victor Borge. "And it taught him a lesson: he was never early for another appointment in his entire life.")

Here, have a little Rossini. It'll be another four years before you can listen to him on his birthday again, you know:

Watch on YouTube

Nor do they mention the most renowned fictional Leap Day baby. Here he is, and his consequent dilemma outlined:

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[ckd]

Hey, he got to be today's Google Doodle; doesn't that count for something?

[(Anonymous)]

On the other hand, Google's image for the day honors Rossini. And when I switched on one of the local classical music stations (I think it was WKSU rather than WCLV) around lunchtime, the host was acknowledging that the quiz offered earlier in the program was incorrect on the question of which birthday Rossini would be celebrating, were he still alive: 53 not 55.

-MTD/neb