If you watch a lot of movies and TV, you've probably heard the music of Dmitri Shostakovich and didn't even know it. The Russian composer was born on this date in 1906 (d. 1975) and was one of the giants of 20th century classical music. Despite his tortured life that pitted him against the Soviet Union, his music lives on in ways he probably couldn't even have imagined (although one of Shostakovich's songs was sung by cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin over the radio from his spacecraft to Mission Control down on earth). You can check out this list of movies/shows that have used his music.
Here's the watlz from the Second Jazz Suite, which was used in Stanley Kubrick's movie Eyes Wide Shut:
And here's the composer himself playing the Andante movement form his Piano Concerto #2, excerpts of which were used most recently in the Cold War film Bridge of Spies starring Tom Hanks:
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