istoryworld
Events relating to music
12-year-old Hungarian pianist Franz Liszt wins a reputation as a virtuoso performer
Austrian composer Franz Schubert writes the song cycle Die Schöne Müllerin ('The beautiful miller's wife')
Beethoven's ninth symphony (the Choral, because of its finale, setting Schiller's Ode to Joy) has its first performance in Vienna
Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini moves to Paris, where he becomes director of the Théatre Italien
Franz Schubert composes his 'Great' C major symphony (previously often attributed to 1828)
17-year-old Felix Mendelssohn composes an overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream, amplifed with huge success eighteen years later
Carl Maria von Weber's opera Oberon has its premiere (in London, at Covent Garden)
After a century of neglect, the 20-year-old Felix Mendelssohn conducts an influential revival in Berlin of J.S. Bach's St Matthew Passion
Gioacchino Rossini's opera William Tell has its premiere in Paris
German composer Felix Mendelssohn visits the Hebrides and see's Fingal's Cave, later the theme of his Hebrides Overture
The Symphonie fantastique by French composer Hector Berlioz has its premiere in Paris
Samuel Francis Smith's patriotic hymn America is sung for the first time on July 4 in Boston
Gaetano Donizetti's opera L'elisir d'amore has its premiere in Milan
Robert Schumann's first published composition is Papillons ('Butterflies'), twelve short dance pieces for piano
Mendelssohn's concert overture The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave) has its premiere in London's Covent Garden
Hector Berlioz marries an Irish actress, Harriet Smithson, with whom he has been obsessed since seeing her play Ophelia and Juliet in 1827
Gaetano Donizetti's opera Lucia di Lammermoor has its premiere in Naples
Hector Berlioz's requiem mass, the Grande messe des morts, has its first performance in Paris
Polish composer Frédéric Chopin completes his Preludes under difficult conditions in Majorca
Robert Schumann composes the song cycle Frauenliebe und -Leben ('Woman's Love and Life')
Robert Schumann marries the pianist Clara Wieck, daughter of his first teacher
The success of the opera Nabucco, premiered in Milan, is a turning point in the fortunes of Giuseppe Verdi
Edwin Pearce Christy launches the Virginia Minstrels, later to become America's most popular minstrel show under the name Christy's Minstrels
The Flying Dutchman is the first of Richard Wagner's major operas to be staged, with its premiere in Dresden
Mendelssohn's overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream, amplified now with incidental music, is greeted as a masterpiece at a performance of the play in Potsdam
