- Feb 17 Friedrich Wilhelm Markull, German composer and muscian, born in Reichenbach, Prussia (1887)
- Feb 20 Josef Michal Ksawery Jan Poniatowski, composer
- Mar 19 Johannes Josephus Hermanus Verhulst, composer
- Mar 27 George Elvey, English composer, born in Canterbury, England (d. 1893)
- Apr 13 William Sterndale Bennett, English composer, born in Sheffield, Yorkshire (d. 1875)
- May 14 Gualtiero Sanelli, Italian composer, born in Parma (d. 1861)
- Aug 16 Joseph Robinson, Irish singer, organist and composer, born in Dublin (d. 1898)
- Sep 1 Gustav Schmidt, composer
- Sep 4 François Bazin, French composer, born in Marseille, France (d. 1878)
- Sep 15 Edward Wolff, Polish pianist and composer, born in Warsaw, Poland (d. 1880)
- Oct 6 William Batchelder Bradbury, American composer, born in York, Maine (d. 1868)
- Nov 14 John Curwen, English Congregationalist minister and founder of Tonic sol-fa music system, born in Heckmondwike, Yorkshire (d. 1880)
- Nov 17 August W Ambros, Austria musicologist (History of Music)
- Nov 29 Carl Binder, Austrian composer, born in Vienna (d. 1860)