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Events

  • January 5 – Max Bruch's Violin Concerto no. 1 in G minor is first performed in its revised version by Joseph Joachim in Bremen with Karl Martin Rheinthaler conducting.
  • February 3 – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 1 ("Winter Daydreams") is first performed in Moscow at a Russian Musical Society concert (having been premièred in Saint Petersburg).
  • April 10 (Good Friday) – The six movement version of Brahms' A German Requiem (Ein deutsches Requiem) is premièred in Bremen Cathedral with Brahms conducting and Julius Stockhausen as the baritone soloist.
  • June 21 – Richard Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg debuts at the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater, Munich with Hans von Bülow conducting.
  • August 15 – Teatro Giuseppe Verdi opens in Busseto, Italy.
  • October – Modest Mussorgsky begins work on his opera Boris Godunov, which is completed six years later.
  • December 21 – The newly rebuilt Gaiety Theatre, London (in the West End) reopens with operatic parodies, including the burlesque Robert the Devil, or The Nun, the Dun, and the Son of a Gun, setting new lyrics by W. S. Gilbert to popular continental opera tunes.
  • Aristide Cavaillé-Coll's organ at Notre-Dame de Paris is dedicated.
  • Edvard Grieg writes his Piano Concerto while staying on Zealand.
  • "Captain Jinks"
  • "Come Back To Erin" by Claribel
  • "Crown Him with Many Crowns" w. Matthew Bridges (1851) m. George Job Elvey (1868)
  • "Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still" w. J.E. Carpenter m. W.T. Wrighton
  • "I Cannot Sing The Old Songs" &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;w.m. Claribel
  • "Little Footsteps" w. Michael Bennett Leavitt m. James A. Barney
  • "The Man on the Flying Trapeze" by George Leybourne, Gaston Lyle, & Alfred Lee (first published the previous year)
  • "The Sweet By and By" w. S. Fillmore m. Joseph P. Webster
  • "Walking In The Zoo" w. Hugh Willoughby Sweny m. Alfred Lee
  • "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" w. Joseph M. Scriven (1855) m. Charles C. Converse (1868)
  • "The Whispering Hope" by Septimus Winner
  • "The Widow In The Cottage By The Sea"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;w.m. Charles A. White
  • "Yield Not To Temptation" w.m. Horatio R. Palmer

Classical music

  • Jean-Baptiste Accolay – Concerto for Violin No. 1 in A minor
  • Georges Bizet – Variations chromatiques de concert for piano
  • Ignaz Brüll – Piano Concerto No. 2 in C, op. 24
  • Johannes Brahms
  • Ein deutsches Requiem, op. 45
  • 5 Lieder, op. 49
  • Anton Bruckner - Symphony No. 1
  • Camille Saint-Saëns – Piano Concerto No. 2
  • Johann Strauss II – Tales from the Vienna Woods
  • Peter Tchaikovsky
  • Songs Without Words
  • Fatum

Opera

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  • Arrigo Boito – Mefistofele
  • Gaetano Braga – Ruy Blas
  • John Thomas Douglass – Virginia's Ball performed (once) at the Stuyvesant Institute on Broadway in New York City, generally regarded as the first opera written by a black composer
  • Gialdino Gialdini – Rosmunda premiered March 5 at the Teatro Pergola, Florence
  • Jacques Offenbach – The Island of Tulipatan
  • Richard Wagner – Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, premièred in the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater, Munich

Musical theatre

  • La Belle Hélène (Music by Jacques Offenbach Libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy) New York production opened at Pike's Opera House on November 2 and ran for 14 performances
  • Ixion Broadway production opened at Wood's Museum and Metropolitan on September 28 and ran for 120 performances. Starring Lydia Thompson.
  • The White Fawn Broadway production opened at Niblo's Garden on January 17 and ran for 176 performances

Births

  • January 6 – Vittorio Monti, Italian violinist, composer and conductor (d. 1922)
  • January 24 – Frank Peabody Atherton, composer, educator (d. 1911)
  • January 26 – Juventino Rosas, composer, band leader (d. 1894)
  • April 13 – John Blackwood McEwen, composer, educator (d. 1948)
  • April 19 – Max von Schillings, composer, conductor (d. 1933)
  • April 22 – José Vianna da Motta, composer, pianist (d. 1948)
  • July 19 – Florence Foster Jenkins, soprano (d. 1944)
  • August 7 – Granville Bantock, composer (d. 1946)
  • August 21 – Vess Ossman, ragtime banjo player (d. 1923)
  • September 8 – Seth Weeks, African American jazz mandolinist, composer, arranger and bandleader (d. 1953)
  • September 12 – Jan Brandts Buys, composer (d. 1933)<!--date from Baker's and imdb-->
  • November 30 – Ernest Newman, critic (d. 1959)
  • Early? (or November 24?) – Scott Joplin, African American ragtime composer, pianist (d. 1917)

Deaths

  • January 3 – Moritz Hauptmann, composer (b. 1792)
  • February 25 – Sophie Schröder, actress and singer (b. 1781)
  • March 2 – Carl Eberwein, composer (b. 1786)
  • April 3 – Franz Berwald, composer (b. 1796)
  • April 26 – Karel Strakatý, singer (b. 1804)
  • June 5 – Anselm Hüttenbrenner, composer (b. 1794)
  • July 6 – Samuel Lover, songwriter (b. 1797)
  • August 11 – Halfdan Kjerulf, composer (b. 1815)
  • November 13 – Gioacchino Rossini, composer (b. 1792)
  • November 25 – Franz Brendel, music critic (b. 1811)
  • December 23 – Karl Ferdinand Adam, composer and cantor (b. 1806)
  • date unknown
  • Berl Broder, singer and troubadour (b. 1815)
  • Erik Jonsson Helland, Hardanger fiddle maker (b. 1816)

References