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thumb|Franz Liszt in 1858

Events

  • January 2 – Sigismond Thalberg is given a farewell concert by the Academy of Music, New York.
  • January 14 – While on their way to the Paris Opéra, Napoleon III of France and Empress Eugénie are attacked by a would-be assassin. The emperor proceeds to attend the performance.
  • February 20 – Giacomo Meyerbeer pays Mathilde Heine 4,500 francs not to publish four poems by her late husband Heinrich Heine.
  • April 7 – Richard Wagner's affair with Mathilde Wesendonck is discovered by her husband; he leaves Zurich shortly afterwards.
  • May 15 – The Royal Italian Opera opens in Covent Garden, London with a performance of Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots.
  • June 17 – Modest Musorgsky resigns from the Preobrazhensky Regiment to take up music full-time.
  • October 21 – Jacques Offenbach's operetta Orpheus in the Underworld, featuring music associated with the can-can, is first performed, at the Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens in Paris.
  • Camille Saint-Saëns succeeds Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wély as organist of La Madeleine, Paris.
  • Arthur Sullivan goes to Leipzig to study music.
  • The Wiener Singverein is formed as a choir in its modern form in Vienna.
  • The Harvard Glee Club is founded at Harvard University in the United States.
  • Hector Berlioz completes the score for his opera Les Troyens.

thumb|right|Poster for a revival of Offenbach's 1858 Orphée Aux Enfers

  • "The Infernal Gallop" ("The Can-Can"), music by Jacques Offenbach (from his operetta, Orphée Aux Enfers)
  • "Warblings at Eve" m. Henry Brinley Richards

Classical music

  • Johannes Brahms
  • Piano Concerto No. 1
  • Serenade No 1, Op. 11
  • Charles Dancla
  • Le mélodiste, Op.86
  • 6 Airs variés, Series I, Op.89
  • Louise Farrenc – Piano Etudes, Op.41
  • Franz Liszt - Book 2 (Deuxième année: Italie) of Années de pèlerinage
  • Camille Saint-Saëns —
  • Piano Concerto No.1
  • Violin Concerto No. 2
  • Jean-Baptiste Singelée – Duo concertant, Op.55
  • Johann Strauss II —
  • Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka
  • Champagner-Polka

Opera

  • Peter Cornelius — Der Barbier von Bagdad
  • Charles Gounod – Le médecin malgré lui, CG 3, premiered January 15 in Paris
  • Giovanni Pacini — Il saltimbanco
  • Jean-Baptiste Weckerlin – La laitière de Trianon, premiered December 18 in Paris

Musical theatre

  • Orphée Aux Enfers, operetta by Jacques Offenbach, Paris production opened at the Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens on October 21 and ran for 228 performances

Births

  • January 3 – Richard Franck, composer (died 1938)
  • January 6 — Ben Davies, operatic tenor (died 1943)
  • February 24 — Arnold Dolmetsch, musical instrument maker (died 1940)
  • March 30 — DeWolf Hopper, US actor and singer (died 1935)
  • April 22 — Ethel Smyth, composer (died 1944)
  • April 25 – Auguste Chapuis, composer (died 1933)
  • May 22 — Charles Kjerulf, composer (died 1919)
  • July 16 — Eugène Ysaÿe, composer (died 1931)
  • July 21 — Chauncey Olcott, singer and songwriter (died 1932)
  • August — Guy d'Hardelot, pianist and composer
  • August 1 — Hans Rott, composer (died 1884)
  • August 9 — Isidore de Lara, composer (died 1935)
  • September 13 – Catharinus Elling, composer (died 1942)
  • September 15 – Jenö Hubay, composer (died 1937)
  • October 12 – Alice Charbonnet-Kellermann, piano composer (died 1914)
  • November 9 – John Stromberg, composer (died 1902)
  • November 11 — Alessandro Moreschi, castrato singer (died 1922)
  • December 22 — Giacomo Puccini, composer (died 1924)

Deaths

  • January 5 — Joseph Radetzky von Radetz, military leader and subject of the Radetzky March by Johann Strauss I (b. 1766)
  • January 23 — Luigi Lablache, operatic bass (b. 1794)
  • April — Bernard Sarrette, founder of the Paris Conservatoire (b. 1765)
  • April 8 — Anton Diabelli, publisher and composer (b. 1781)
  • April 16 — Johann Baptist Cramer, pianist and composer (b. 1771)
  • June 3 — Julius Reubke, pianist and composer (b. 1834)
  • August 24 — Francis Edward Bache, composer (b. 1833)
  • September 8 – Jacopo Foroni, composer (born 1825)
  • September 15 — Thomas Adams, organist and composer (b. 1785)
  • October 31 — Karl Thomas Mozart, musician, son of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (b. 1784)
  • November 15 — Johanna Kinkel, composer (b. 1810)
  • December 27 — Alexandre Pierre François Boëly, pianist, organist and composer (b. 1785)

References