1876 in music
Encyclopedia
Events
- February 24 - Incidental music composed by Edvard GriegEdvard GriegEdvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is best known for his Piano Concerto in A minor, for his incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt , and for his collection of piano miniatures Lyric Pieces.-Biography:Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born in...
for Henrik IbsenHenrik IbsenHenrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
's Peer GyntPeer GyntPeer Gynt is a five-act play in verse by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen, loosely based on the fairy tale Per Gynt. It is the most widely performed Norwegian play. According to Klaus Van Den Berg, the "cinematic script blends poetry with social satire and realistic scenes with surreal ones"...
premieres. - August 16 - Richard WagnerRichard WagnerWilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's SiegfriedSiegfried (opera)Siegfried is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner. It received its premiere at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 16 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of The Ring...
debuts in BayreuthBayreuth FestspielhausThe or Bayreuth Festival Theatre is an opera house north of Bayreuth, Germany, dedicated solely to the performance of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner...
Published popular music
- "I'll Take You Home Again, KathleenI'll Take You Home Again, KathleenI'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen is a popular song written by Thomas P. Westendorf in 1875. In spite of its American origins, it is known and revered as an Irish ballad. Westendorf, a school teacher in Plainfield, Indiana, wrote it for his wife...
" by Thomas Payne Westendorf - "Grandfather's ClockMy Grandfather's Clock"My Grandfather's Clock" is a song written in 1876 by Henry Clay Work, the author of "Marching Through Georgia". It is a standard of British brass bands and colliery bands, and is also popular in bluegrass music.-Origin of the song:...
" by Henry Clay WorkHenry Clay WorkHenry Clay Work was an American composer and songwriter.-Biography:He was born in Middletown, Connecticut, to Alanson and Amelia Work. His father opposed slavery, and Work was himself an active abolitionist and Union supporter... - "The Bonnie Banks O' Loch LomondThe Bonnie Banks O' Loch Lomond"The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond", or simply "Loch Lomond" for short, is a well-known traditional Scottish song . It was first published in 1841 in Vocal Melodies of Scotland....
" by Andrew LangAndrew LangAndrew Lang was a Scots poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures at the University of St Andrews are named after him.- Biography :Lang was born in Selkirk... - "Gay As A Lark" by Septimus WinnerSeptimus WinnerSeptimus Winner is best known as a songwriter of the nineteenth century. He used his own name, and also the pseudonyms Alice Hawthorne, Percy Guyer, Mark Mason, Apsley Street, and Paul Stenton...
- "When The Great Red Dawn is Shining" (anon)
- "Old Aunt Jemima" by James Grace
- "Rose of Killarney" by George CooperGeorge CooperGeorge Stephen Cooper , was an Australian cricket Test match umpire.He umpired two Test matches between 1948 and 1950...
& John Rogers ThomasJohn Rogers ThomasJohn Rogers Thomas was an American composer, pianist, and singer of Welsh descent.Thomas was born in Newport, Rhode Island. A baritone and composer, he first came to America with the Sequin English Opera Company and became interested in the music of America that was developing...
Classical music
- Johannes BrahmsJohannes BrahmsJohannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
- Symphony No. 1Symphony No. 1 (Brahms)The Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68, is a symphony written by Johannes Brahms. Brahms spent at least fourteen years completing this work, whose sketches date from 1854. Brahms himself declared that the symphony, from sketches to finishing touches, took 21 years, from 1855 to 1876...
completed - Pietro Abbà CornagliaPietro Abbà CornagliaPietro Abbà Cornaglia was an Italian organist, concert pianist, and composer. He was born in Alessandria, where he lived his entire life. He studied music with his stepfather Pietro Cornaglia before attending the Milan Conservatory from 1868 to 1871 to learn piano and composition...
- Requiem - Felix DraesekeFelix DraesekeFelix August Bernhard Draeseke was a composer of the "New German School" admiring Liszt and Richard Wagner. He wrote compositions in most forms including eight operas and stage works, four symphonies, and much vocal and chamber music.-Life:Felix Draeseke was born in the Franconian ducal town of...
- Six Fugues for piano; Dämmerungsräume: Five piano pieces, op 14 - Antonín DvořákAntonín DvorákAntonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...
- Piano Concerto in G minorPiano Concerto (Dvorák)The Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in G minor, Op.33 was the first of three concertos that Antonín Dvořák completed—it was followed by a violin concerto and then a cello concerto—and the piano concerto is probably the least known and least performed....
, op. 33 - César FranckCésar FranckCésar-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life....
- Les Éolides - Benjamin GodardBenjamin GodardBenjamin Louis Paul Godard was a French violinist and Romantic composer.-Biography:Born in Paris, Godard was a student of Henri Vieuxtemps. He entered the Conservatoire de Paris in 1863 where he studied under Vieuxtemps and Napoléon Henri Reber and accompanied Vieuxtemps twice to Germany...
- Concerto Romantique - Bedřich SmetanaBedrich SmetanaBedřich Smetana was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music...
- String Quartet No. 1 in E minor From My Life - Charles-Marie WidorCharles-Marie WidorCharles-Marie Jean Albert Widor was a French organist, composer and teacher.-Life:Widor was born in Lyon, to a family of organ builders, and initially studied music there with his father, François-Charles Widor, titular organist of Saint-François-de-Sales from 1838 to 1889...
- Organ Symphonies Nos. 1-3 Op. 13
Opera
- Amilcare PonchielliAmilcare PonchielliAmilcare Ponchielli was an Italian composer, largely of operas.-Biography:Born in Paderno Fasolaro, now Paderno Ponchielli, near Cremona, Ponchielli won a scholarship at the age of nine to study music at the Milan Conservatory, writing his first symphony by the time he was ten years old.Two years...
- La GiocondaLa Gioconda (opera)La Gioconda is an opera in four acts by Amilcare Ponchielli set to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Angelo, tyran de Padoue, a play in prose by Victor Hugo, dating from 1835... - Arrigo BoitoArrigo BoitoArrigo Boito , aka Enrico Giuseppe Giovanni Boito, pseudonym Tobia Gorrio, was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist and composer, best known today for his libretti, especially those for Giuseppe Verdi's operas Otello and Falstaff, and his own opera Mefistofele...
- MefistofeleMefistofeleMefistofele is an opera in a prologue, four acts and an epilogue, the only completed opera by the Italian composer-librettist Arrigo Boito.-Composition history:... - Luigi DenzaLuigi DenzaLuigi Denza , was an Italian composer.Denza was born at Castellammare di Stabia, near Naples. He studied music under Saverio Mercadante and Paolo Serrao at the Naples Conservatory. Later, he moved to London and became a professor of singing at the Royal Academy of Music in 1898...
- Wallenstein - Bedřich SmetanaBedrich SmetanaBedřich Smetana was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music...
- The KissThe Kiss (opera)The Kiss is an opera in two acts, with music by Bedřich Smetana and text by Eliška Krásnohorská, based on a novel by Karolina Světlá. It received its first performance in Prague on November 7, 1876.- Roles :- Act I :... - Richard WagnerRichard WagnerWilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
- SiegfriedSiegfried (opera)Siegfried is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner. It received its premiere at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 16 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of The Ring... - Richard Wagner - GötterdämmerungGötterdämmerungis the last in Richard Wagner's cycle of four operas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen...
Births
- January 12 - Ermanno Wolf-FerrariErmanno Wolf-FerrariErmanno Wolf-Ferrari was an Italian composer and teacher. He is best known for his comic operas such as Il segreto di Susanna...
, composer - January 29
- Havergal BrianHavergal BrianHavergal Brian , was a British classical composer.Brian acquired a legendary status at the time of his rediscovery in the 1950s and 1960s for the many symphonies he had managed to write. By the end of his life he had completed 32, an unusually large number for any composer since Haydn or Mozart...
, composer (d. 1972) - Ludolf NielsenLudolf NielsenLudolf Nielsen was a Danish composer, violinist, conductor, and a pianist. Today he is considered as one of the most important Danish composers of the early 1900s .-Life:...
, composer (d. 1939)
- Havergal Brian
- February 2 - Giovanni ZenatelloGiovanni ZenatelloGiovanni Zenatello was an Italian opera singer. Born in Verona, he enjoyed an international career as a dramatic tenor of the first rank. Otello became his most famous operatic role but he sang a wide repertoire. In 1904, he created the part of Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly.-Career:Zenatello...
, tenor - February 28 - John Alden CarpenterJohn Alden CarpenterJohn Alden Carpenter was an American composer.-Biography:Born in Park Ridge, Illinois, Carpenter was raised in a musical household. He was educated at Harvard University, where he studied under John Knowles Paine, and was president of the Glee Club and wrote music for the Hasty-Pudding Club...
, composer - March 11 - Carl RugglesCarl RugglesCharles "Carl" Sprague Ruggles was an American composer of the American Five group. He wrote finely crafted pieces using "dissonant counterpoint", a term coined by Charles Seeger to describe Ruggles' music...
, composer (d. 1971) - May 19 - Alice Mary SmithAlice Mary SmithAlice Mary Smith, married name Alice Mary Meadows White was an English composer.Smith was born in London, the third child of a relatively well-to-do family. She showed aptitude for music from her early years and took lessons privately from William Sterndale Bennett and George Macfarren, publishing...
, composer - June 2 - Hakon Børresen, DanishDenmarkDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
composer (d. 1954) - June 5 - Tony Jackson, jazz musician (d. 1920)
- August 14 - Florrie FordeFlorrie FordeFlorrie Forde , born Flora May Augusta Flannagan, was an Australian popular singer and entertainer. She was one of the greatest stars of the early 20th century music hall....
, Australian-born English music hallMusic hallMusic Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...
singer - August 16 - Karl HoschnaKarl HoschnaKarl Hoschna was a Tin Pan Alley-era composer most noted for his songs "Cuddle up a Little Closer, Lovey Mine", "Every Little Movement" and "Yama Yama Man", and for a string of successful Broadway musicals....
, Bohemian-born US composer - September 15 - Bruno WalterBruno WalterBruno Walter was a German-born conductor. He is considered one of the best known conductors of the 20th century. Walter was born in Berlin, but is known to have lived in several countries between 1933 and 1939, before finally settling in the United States in 1939...
, conductor (d. 1962) - November 23 - Manuel de FallaManuel de FallaManuel de Falla y Matheu was a Spanish Andalusian composer of classical music. With Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados and Joaquín Turina he is one of Spain's most important musicians of the first half of the 20th century....
, composer (d. 1946) - December 11 - Mieczysław Karłowicz, composer (d. 1909)
Deaths
- February 28 - Raimondo BoucheronRaimondo BoucheronRaimondo Boucheron was an Italian composer, chiefly of sacred music. During his life, he was known primarily for the song "Inno per le cinque giornate". Today he is remembered as one of the contributors to the Messa per Rossini, for which he wrote the Confutatis and Oro supplex of the Dies irae...
, composer (b. 1800) - March 5
- Francesco Maria PiaveFrancesco Maria PiaveFrancesco Maria Piave was an Italian opera librettist who was born in Murano in the lagoon of Venice, during the brief Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. His career spanned over twenty years working with many of the significant composers of his day...
, librettist and friend of Giuseppe VerdiGiuseppe VerdiGiuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century... - Marie d'AgoultMarie d'AgoultMarie Catherine Sophie de Flavigny, Vicomtesse de Flavigny , was a French author, known also by her married name and title, Marie, Comtesse d'Agoult, and by her pen name, Daniel Stern....
, lover of Franz LisztFranz LisztFranz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
and mother of Cosima WagnerCosima WagnerCosima Francesca Gaetana Wagner, née de Flavigny, from 1844 known as Cosima Liszt; was the daughter of Hungarian composer Franz Liszt...
- Francesco Maria Piave
- April 19 - Samuel Sebastian WesleySamuel Sebastian WesleySamuel Sebastian Wesley was an English organist and composer.-Biography:Born in London, he was the eldest child in the composer Samuel Wesley's second family, which he formed with Sarah Suter having separated from his wife Charlotte. Samuel Sebastian was the grandson of Charles Wesley...
, organist and composer - June 28 - August Wilhelm AmbrosAugust Wilhelm AmbrosAugust Wilhelm Ambros was an Austrian composer and music historian of Czech descent.- Life :He was born at Mýto, Rokycany District, Bohemia. His father was a cultured man, and his mother was the sister of Raphael Georg Kiesewetter , the musical archaeologist and collector...
, composer and music historian (b. 1816) - August 29 - Félicien-César DavidFélicien-César DavidFélicien-César David was a French composer.-Biography:Félicien David was born in Cadenet , France, and began to study music at five under his father, whose early death however left him an impoverished orphan...
, composer - September 30 - Henri BertiniHenri BertiniHenri Jérôme Bertini was a French classical composer and pianist.- Life :Henri Jérôme Bertini was born in London on October 28, 1798, but his family returned to Paris six months later. He received his early musical education from his father and his brother, a pupil of Muzio Clementi...
, pianist and composer - November 8 - Antonio TamburiniAntonio TamburiniAntonio Tamburini was an Italian operatic baritone.Born in Faenza, then part of the Papal States, Tamburini studied the orchestral horn with his father and voice with Aldobrando Rossi, before making his debut as a singer, aged 18, in La contessa di colle erbose . He went on to become one of the...
, operatic baritone - November 9 - Édouard BatisteÉdouard BatisteÉdouard Batiste was a French composer and organist. He was born and died in Paris.While studying at the Imperial Conservatoire as a teenager, he won prizes in solfège, harmony and accompaniment, counterpoint and fugue, and organ...
, organist and composer (b. 1820) - November 18 - Nicolas BosretNicolas BosretNicolas Bosret was a blind composer and organist at the St. Loup church in Namur.In 1851 he composed Li Bia Bouquet , a song in the Walloon language that gained a lot of popularity in that city and became the official hymn of the city....
, blind organist and composer (b. 1799) - December 3 - Hermann GoetzHermann GoetzHermann Gustav Goetz was a German composer.After studying in Berlin, he moved to Switzerland in 1863. After ten years spent as a critic, pianist and conductor as well, he spent the last three years of his life composing...
, composer