1872 in music

Events

*Friedrich Nietzsche takes up musical composition again after a long break.
*Tomás Bretón and Ruperto Chapí receive the first prize of the Madrid Conservatory.

Published popular music

* "Moonlight on the Potomac" by John Philip Sousa
* "You Never Miss the Water Till the Well Runs Dry" by Harry Linn & Rollin Howard
* "Only a Dream" by George Cooper & William Vincent Wallace

Classical music

* "Piano Concerto in A minor" (op. 16) by Edvard Grieg
*"Octet" for wind, opus 156, by Franz Paul Lachner
*"L'Arlésienne Suite No. 1" from the incidental music to Alphonse Daudet's play of the same name, by Georges Bizet

Opera

*Georges Bizet - "Djamileh"
*Gialdino Gialdini - "La secchia rapita" premiered at the Teatro Goldoni, Florence
*Alexandre Charles Lecocq - "Les Cent Vierges"
*Miguel Marqués - "Justos por pecadores"
*Karel Miry
**"De dichter en zijn droombeeld" (opera in 4 acts, libretto by Hendrik Conscience, premiered on December 2 in Brussels)
**"De twee zusters" (opera in 1 act, libretto by P. Geiregat, premiered in Brussels)
*Modest Mussorgsky - "Boris Gudonov", Revised Version

Musical theater

* "La fille de Madame Angot", Brussels production
* "La vie parisienne", London production

Relevant Books

* "Über die Benennung "Musikdrama" by Richard Wagner

Births

*January 6 - Alexander Scriabin, composer
*January 11 - Paul Graener, composer
*January 16 - Henri-Paul Busser, composer
*March 6 - Ben Harney, ragtime pianist and songwriter
*March 7 - Vasily Andreyevich Zolotaryov, composer
*March 8 - Paul Juon, Russian-Swiss violinist and composer
*March 10 - Felix Borowski, composer
*March 18 - Frank Hoyt Losey, composer
*March 19 - Sergei Diaghilev, choreographer
*March 20 - Bernhard Seklas, composer
*March 30 - Sergey Nikiforovich Vasilenko, composer
*April 1 - Tadeusz Joteyko, composer
*April 4 - Nikolai Amani, composer
*April 4 - Pauline de Haan-Manifarges, singer
*April 29 - Eyvind Alnæs, composer
*May 1 - Hugo Alfvén, composer
*July 7 - Juan Lamonte de Grignon, composer
* July 8 - Harry Von Tilzer
*July 18 - Julius Fučík, composer
*July 20 - Alick Maclean and Déodat de Séverac, composers
*July 27 - Stanislav Binicki, composer
* August 10 - Bill Johnson
*August 15 - Harold Fraser-Simson and Rubin Goldmark, composers
*October 3 - Edward Faber Schneider, composer
* October 12 - Ralph Vaughan Williams
*November 29 - Anna Bahr-von Mildenburg, Austrian soprano
*December 10 - Johann Babtist Thaller, composer
*December 20 - Lorenzo Perosi, Italian composer

Deaths

*January 20 - Raffaele Sacco, lyricist (b. 1787)
*February 16 - Henry Fothergill Chorley, music critic (b. 1808)
*April 3 - Henriette Widerberg, operatic soprano (b. 1796)
*May 5 - Johann Kulik, luthier (b. 1800)
*May 15 - Thomas Hastings, composer of hymns (b. 1784)
*July 26 - Michele Carafa, opera composer (b. 1787)
*August 4 - Wilhelm Friedrich Wieprecht, conductor and composer (b. 1802)
*August 11 - Lowell Mason, organist and composer (b. 1792)
*August 19 - Eugene-Prosper Prevost, composer
*September 7 - Antoni Stolpe, composer
*September 14 - Yury Nikolayevich Golitsin, composer
*September 16 - Gall Morel, choirmaster (b. 1803)
*November 29 - Giovanni Tadolini, composer
*"date unknown" - Karolina Bock, singer, dancer and actress (b. 1792)