1859 in music

Events

* March 4 - Charter of the French Opera House, New Orleans, which opens on December 1 of the same year with a gala performance of Rossini's "William Tell".
* April 4 - Bryants Minstrels debut "Dixie" at Mechanics' Hall, New York City.

Published popular music

* "Darling little blue eyed Nell" w. B. E. Woolf m. Frederick Buckley

Classical Music

*Overture to "King Lear" by Mily Balakirev [cite web|title=Review of Recording of King Lear Overture|url=http://www.recordsinternational.com/archive/RICatalogNov98.html|accessdate=2007-09-21]
*"Piano Concerto No. 1" by Johannes Brahms
*"Serenade No. 2 in A" by Johannes Brahms
*"Helges Treue" by Felix Draeseke
*"Totentanz (finished); first version of Psalm 23; Psalm 137 (begun, finished 1862); Prelude after a theme from Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen for piano; and orchestral version of "Deux Épisodes d'apres le Faust de Lenau" by Franz Liszt

Opera

*César Cui - "The Mandarin's Son"
*Léo Delibes - "L'Omelette à la Follembuche"
*Charles Gounod - "Faust" first performed in Paris. Libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on a work by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
*Giuseppe Verdi - "Un ballo in maschera"

Musical theater

*"Going It Blind" - Broadway production

Births

*January 26 - W. O. Forsyth, pianist and composer (d. 1937)
*February 1 - Victor Herbert, cellist, conductor and composer (d. 1924)
*April 3 - Reginald de Koven, US composer (d. 1920)
*April 5 - Wilhelm Harteveld, composer
*April 11 - Basil Harwood, organist and composer (d. 1949)
*May 13 - August Enna, composer (d. 1939)
*June 22 - Frank Heino Damrosch, founder of Institute of Music (d. 1937)
*June 27 - Mildred J. Hill, composer of "Happy Birthday to You" (d. 1916)
*July 21 - Charles H. Taylor, lyricist (d. 1907)
*September 24 - Julius Klengel, cellist, composer (d. 1933)
*October 14 - Camille Chevillard, conductor and composer (d. 1923)
*November 15 - Joseph Vidal, composer (d. 1924)
*November 19 - Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, conductor and composer (d. 1935)
*November 30 - Sergei Lyapunov, pianist and composer (d. 1924)
*December 21 - Max Fiedler, conductor and composer (d. 1939)
*December 23 - Adrian Ross, English lyricist (d. 1933)
*December 27 - William Henry Hadow, musicologist (d. 1937)
*December 30 - Josef Bohuslav Foerster, composer (d. 1951)

Deaths

*January 13 - Francisco José Debali, composer (b. 1791)
*March 14 - Nicola Tacchinardi, cellist and operatic tenor (b. 1772)
*April 14 - Ignaz Bösendorfer, piano manufacturer (b. 1796)
*July - Lewis Henry Lavenu, conductor, composer and impresario (d. 1818)
*July 23 - Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, actress, singer and poet (b. 1786)
*July 29 - Auguste Mathieu Panseron, composer and singing teacher (b. 1796)
*November 7 - Carl Gottlieb Reißiger, Kapellmeister and composer (b. 1798)
*November 22 - Louis Spohr, violinist, conductor and composer (b. 1784)
*December 31 - Luigi Ricci, composer (b. 1805)

References