Events in Music
- Mar 19 Opera "Mireille" premieres in Paris
Birthdays in Music
- Jan 29 Adolf Philipp, composer
- Feb 5 Carl Teike, German military composer, born in Stettin-Altdamm, Pomerania (d. 1922)
- Feb 7 Arthur Collins, singer/comedian (Peerless Quartet)
- Feb 7 Ricardo Castro Herrera, composer
- Feb 17 Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson, NSW Australia, poet (Waltzing Matilda)
- Mar 15 Johan Halvorsen, composer
- Mar 15 Leslie Stuart, composer
- Mar 23 Hjalmar Borgstrom, composer
- Mar 23 Louis Glass, Danish composer, born in Copenhagen (d. 1936)
- Apr 10 Eugene Francis Charles D'Albert, German pianist and composer (Golem), born in Glasgow, Scotland (d. 1932)
- May 14 Eleanor Everest Freer, composer
- Jun 11 Richard Strauss, German composer (Don Quixote), born in Munich, Germany (d. 1949)
- Jun 15 Guy Ropartz [Joseph Guy Marie Ropartz], French composer, born in Guingamp, France (d. 1955)
- Jun 29 Anton Beer-Walbrun, German composer, born in Kohlberg, Germany (d. 1929)
- Jul 6 Alberto Nepomuceno, Brazil, composer/conductor (Artemis)
- Jul 24 Michel-Gaston Carraud, French composer, born in Le Mée-sur-Seine, France (d. 1920)
- Aug 5 Resurreccion Maria de Azkue, composer
- Aug 31 Max Wilhelm Zach, composer
- Sep 3 Hale A. VanderCook, American composer, born in Ann Arbor, Michigan (d. 1949)
- Sep 7 Giovanni Tebaldini, Italian composer, born in Brescia, Lombardy, Italy (d. 1952)
- Oct 25 Alexander Gretchaninov, Russian composer, born in Moscow, Russia (d. 1956)
- Oct 26 Joseph Moorat, composer
- Oct 30 Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, composer
- Nov 10 Alexandre Levy, Brazilian composer and pianist, born in São Paulo, Brazil (d. 1892)
- Dec 9 Sidney Homer, composer
- Dec 17 John Felix August Korling, composer
- Dec 19 Adolf Sandberger, composer
- Dec 30 Alessandro Longo, composer
Deaths in Music
Stephen Foster
Jan 13 Stephen Foster, American composer (My Old Kentucky Home), dies at 37 in New York
Stephen Foster
- Jan 15 Isaac Nathan, UK-Australian composer (b. 1792)
- Jan 16 Anton Schindler, German violinist and biographer (Beethoven), dies at 68
- Jan 23 Michele Puccini, composer, dies at 50
- Jan 24 Otto Jonas Lindblad, composer, dies at 54
- Feb 16 Vaclav Jindrich Veit, composer, dies at 58
- Mar 30 Louis Alexander Balthasar Schindelmeisser, composer, dies 52
- Apr 13 Johann Schneider, German composer and organist, dies at 74
- May 2 Giacomo Meyerbeer, German opera composer (Golt Und Die Natur), dies at 72
- Jul 28 Johann Hermann Kufferath, composer, dies at 67
- Oct 18 Jacques Francois Gallay, composer, dies at 68
- Oct 27 Andreas Randel, Swedish composer, dies at 58
- Dec 21 William Henry Fry, composer, dies at 51