1888 in music

• Wax phonograph cylinder
  Phonograph cylinder
  Phonograph cylinders were the earliest medium for recording and reproducing sound. Commonly known simply as "records" in their era of greatest popularity , these cylinder shaped objects had an audio recording engraved on the outside surface which could be reproduced when the cylinder was played on...
  
  s are mass marketed.
• Hamish MacCunn
  Hamish MacCunn
  Hamish MacCunn , Scottish romantic composer, was born in Greenock, the son of a shipowner, and was educated at the Royal College of Music, where his teachers included Sir Hubert Parry and Sir Charles Villiers Stanford....
  
   marries Alison, daughter of John Pettie
  John Pettie
  John Pettie RA was a Scottish painter. He was born in Edinburgh, the son of Alexander and Alison Pettie. In 1852 the family moved to East Linton, Haddingtonshire...
  
  , RA.
• July : first performance of The Internationale
  The Internationale
  The Internationale is a famous socialist, communist, social-democratic and anarchist anthem and one of the most widely recognized songs in the world....
  
   in Lille
  Lille
  Lille is a city in northern France. It is the principal city of the Lille Métropole, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country behind those of Paris, Lyon and Marseille. Lille is situated on the Deûle River, near France's border with Belgium...
  
  , France
  France
  France , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
  
  

• "Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill"     anon poss Thomas F. Casey
• "Over The Waves" ("Sobre las Olas")     w.m. Juventino Rosas
  Juventino Rosas
  José Juventino Policarpo Rosas Cadenas was a Mexican composer, violinist, and band leader.Rosas was born into a poor Otomi family, in Santa Cruz de Galeana, Guanajuato, now renamed Santa Cruz de Juventino Rosas...
  
  
• "Where Did You Get That Hat?"     w.m.

Events

• Wax phonograph cylinder
  Phonograph cylinder
  Phonograph cylinders were the earliest medium for recording and reproducing sound. Commonly known simply as "records" in their era of greatest popularity , these cylinder shaped objects had an audio recording engraved on the outside surface which could be reproduced when the cylinder was played on...
  
  s are mass marketed.
• Hamish MacCunn
  Hamish MacCunn
  Hamish MacCunn , Scottish romantic composer, was born in Greenock, the son of a shipowner, and was educated at the Royal College of Music, where his teachers included Sir Hubert Parry and Sir Charles Villiers Stanford....
  
   marries Alison, daughter of John Pettie
  John Pettie
  John Pettie RA was a Scottish painter. He was born in Edinburgh, the son of Alexander and Alison Pettie. In 1852 the family moved to East Linton, Haddingtonshire...
  
  , RA.
• July : first performance of The Internationale
  The Internationale
  The Internationale is a famous socialist, communist, social-democratic and anarchist anthem and one of the most widely recognized songs in the world....
  
   in Lille
  Lille
  Lille is a city in northern France. It is the principal city of the Lille Métropole, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country behind those of Paris, Lyon and Marseille. Lille is situated on the Deûle River, near France's border with Belgium...
  
  , France
  France
  France , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
  
  

Published popular music

• "Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill"     anon poss Thomas F. Casey
• "Over The Waves" ("Sobre las Olas")     w.m. Juventino Rosas
  Juventino Rosas
  José Juventino Policarpo Rosas Cadenas was a Mexican composer, violinist, and band leader.Rosas was born into a poor Otomi family, in Santa Cruz de Galeana, Guanajuato, now renamed Santa Cruz de Juventino Rosas...
  
  
• "Where Did You Get That Hat?"     w.m. Joseph J. Sullivan
• "The Whistling Coon"     w.m. Sam Devere

Classical music

Classical music

Classical music is the mainstream music produced in, or rooted in the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 9th century to present times...

• Johannes Brahms
  Johannes Brahms
  Johannes Brahms , German composer and pianist, was 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...
  
   - Violin Sonata in D Minor
  Violin Sonata No. 3 (Brahms)
  Johannes Brahms' Violin Sonata No. 3 in D minor, op. 108 is the last in a triptych of violin sonatas composed between 1878 and 1887. Unlike Brahms' two previous violin sonatas it is in four movements...
  
  (opus
  Opus number
  Opus , from the Latin word opus meaning "work", is usually used in the sense of "a work of art".The Latin plural of opus, "opera", is used to refer to the genre of music drama Opus (plural opera or opuses), from the Latin word opus meaning "work", is usually used in the sense of "a work of art".The...
  
   108)
• Cécile Chaminade
  Cécile Chaminade
  Cécile Louise Stéphanie Chaminade was a French composer and pianist.-Biography:Born in Paris, she studied at first with her mother, then with Félix Le Couppey, Augustin Savard, Martin Pierre Marsick and Benjamin Godard, but not officially, since her father disapproved of her musical education.Her...
  
   - Scarf Dance, Callirhoe (ballet)
• Claude Debussy
  Claude Debussy
  Achille-Claude Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of Impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
  
   - Arabesque No. 1
  Arabesques (Debussy)
  The Deux Arabesques, L. 66 is a suite of two arabesques composed by Claude Debussy. The arabesques are two of Debussy's earliest works, composed between the years 1888 and 1891. Debussy was still in his twenties....
  
  , L. 66 for piano
• Frederick Delius
  Frederick Delius
  Frederick Albert Theodore Delius CH was an English composer.- Life :Frederick Delius was born in Bradford in the West Riding of Yorkshire in the north of England. His parents were German: Julius and Elise Pauline Delius had moved from Bielefeld, Germany to Britain to set themselves up in the wool...
  
   - Hiawatha (tone poem)
• César Franck
  César Franck
  César Franck , a Belgian composer, organist and music teacher who lived in France, was one of the great figures in Romantic music in the second half of the 19th century.- Biography :...
  
   - Symphony in D Minor
  Symphony in D minor (Franck)
  The Symphony in D minor is the most famous orchestral work and the only symphony written by the 19th-century Belgian composer César Franck. After two years of work, the symphony was completed 22 August 1888. It was premiered at the Paris Conservatory on 17 February 1889 under the direction of ...
  
  
• Edvard Grieg
  Edvard Grieg
  Edvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist who composed in the Romantic period. 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...
  
  
  • Lyric Pieces
    Lyric Pieces
    Lyric Pieces is a collection of 66 short pieces for solo piano written by Edvard Grieg. They were published in 10 volumes, from 1867 to 1901...
    
     for Piano, Book IV
  • Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46
    Peer Gynt Suites
    The Incidental music to Peer Gynt, Op. 23, was written in 1875 by Edvard Grieg for Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen's play of the same name. It premiered along with the play on 24 February 1876 in Christiania ....
    
    
• Gustav Mahler
  Gustav Mahler
  Gustav Mahler was a Bohemian-born Austrian composer and conductor. He was best known during his own lifetime as one of the leading orchestral and operatic conductors of the day...
  
   - Symphony No. 1
  Symphony No. 1 (Mahler)
  The Symphony No. 1 in D major is a symphony by Gustav Mahler first composed between 1884 and 1888 . The initial premiere was in Budapest in 1889, where it was presented as a five-movement symphonic poem under the title "Symphonische Dichtung in zwei Teilen"...
  
  , Lieder aus "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" (song collection)
• Ignacy Jan Paderewski
  Ignacy Jan Paderewski
  Ignacy Jan Paderewski GBE was a Polish pianist, composer, diplomat, politician, and the third Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland...
  
   - Piano Concerto in A minor
• Max Reger
  Max Reger
  Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger was a German composer, conductor, pianist, organist, and teacher.- Life :...
  
   - String Quartet in D minor (with double bass obbligato; without op.) (1888-9)
• Joseph Rheinberger - Organ Sonata No. 12 in D-flat, Op. 154
• Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
  Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
  Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov , also Nikolay, Nicolai, and Rimsky-Korsakoff, was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as "The Five." Noted particularly for a predilection for folk and fairy-tale subjects as well as his extraordinary skill in orchestration, his...
  
   - Russian Easter Festival Overture
  Russian Easter Festival Overture
  Russian Easter Festival Overture Op.36 is a concert overture written by the Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov between August 1887 and April 1888 dedicated to the memories of Modest Mussorgsky and Alexander Borodin, the two members of the legendary "Mighty Handful"...
  
  
• Erik Satie
  Erik Satie
  Éric Alfred Leslie Satie was a French composer and pianist. Starting with his first composition in 1884, he signed his name as Erik Satie....
  
   - Three Gymnopédies
  Gymnopédie
  The Gymnopédies, published in Paris starting in 1888, are three piano compositions written by French composer and pianist Erik Satie.These short, atmospheric pieces are written in 3/4 time, with each sharing a common theme and structure...
  
  for piano
• Richard Strauss
  Richard Strauss
  Richard Georg Strauss was a German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, particularly of operas, Lieder and tone poems...
  
  
  • Don Juan
    Don Juan (Strauss)
    Don Juan, op.20 is a tone poem for large orchestra by the German composer Richard Strauss, which was written in 1888. The composer conducted its premier on 11 November 1889 with the orchestra of the Weimar Opera, where he served as Court Kapellmeister....
    
    , Macbeth (first version)
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
  Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
  Pyotr Ilyich TchaikovskyThe subject's names are also transliterated Piotr, Petr, or Peter; Ilitsch, Ilich, Il'ich or Illyich; and Tschaikowski, Tschaikowsky, Chajkovskij and Chaikovsky...
  
  
  • Sleeping Beauty (ballet)
  • Symphony No. 5
    Symphony No. 5 (Tchaikovsky)
    The Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was composed between May and August 1888 and was first performed in St Petersburg on November 6 of that year with Tchaikovsky conducting....
    
    
• Hugo Wolf
  Hugo Wolf
  Hugo Wolf was an Austrian composer of Slovene origin, particularly noted for his art songs, or Lieder. He brought to this form a concentrated expressive intensity which was unique in late Romantic music, somewhat related to that of the Second Viennese School in concision but utterly unrelated in...
  
  
  • Goethe
    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer and polymath. Goethe's works span the fields of poetry, drama, literature, theology, philosophy, humanism and science. Goethe's magnum opus, lauded as one of the peaks of world literature, is the two-part drama Faust...
    
    -Lieder
  • Mörike
    Eduard Mörike
    Eduard Friedrich Mörike was a German romantic poet.He studied Theology at the Seminary of Tübingen, and followed the ecclesiastical career, becoming a Lutheran pastor...
    
    -Lieder

Opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

• Karel Miry
  Karel Miry
  Karel Miry was a Belgian composer.He was one of the first Belgian composers to write operas to librettos in Dutch...
  
   - La Napolitaine (opera in 1 act, libretto by J. de Bruyne, premiered on February 25 in Antwerp
  Antwerp
  ||-||-||-||}Antwerp is a city and municipality in Belgium and the capital of the Antwerp province in Flanders, one of Belgium's three regions. Antwerp's total population is 472,071 and its total area is , giving a population density of 2,308 inhabitants per km²...
  
  )
• Emile Pessard
  Emile Pessard
  Émile Louis Fortuné Pessard was a French composer.He studied at the Paris Conservatoire where he won 1st prize in Harmony. In 1866 he won the Grand Prix de Rome with his cantata Dalila which was performed at the Paris Opera on February 21, 1867...
  
   - Tartarin sur les Alpes premiered on November 17 at the Théâtre de la Gaîté, Paris
• Carl Maria von Weber
  Carl Maria von Weber
  Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school....
  
  , completed by Gustav Mahler
  Gustav Mahler
  Gustav Mahler was a Bohemian-born Austrian composer and conductor. He was best known during his own lifetime as one of the leading orchestral and operatic conductors of the day...
  
   - Die Drei Pintos

Musical theater

• The Yeomen of the Guard
  The Yeomen of the Guard
  The Yeomen of the Guard, or The Merryman and his Maid, is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 3 October 1888, and ran for 423 performances...
  
  by W. S. Gilbert
  W. S. Gilbert
  Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...
  
   and Sir Arthur Sullivan
  Arthur Sullivan
  Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer, of Irish and Italian descent, best known for his operatic collaborations with librettist W. S. Gilbert, including such continually-popular works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, and The Mikado...
  
   - London
  West End theatre
  West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's "Theatreland". Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking world...
  
   production
• The Yeomen of the Guard
  The Yeomen of the Guard
  The Yeomen of the Guard, or The Merryman and his Maid, is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 3 October 1888, and ran for 423 performances...
  
  - Broadway
  Broadway theatre
  Broadway Theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, is the theatre associated with the 40 large professional theaters with 500 seats or more located in the Theatre District, New York in Manhattan, New York City...
  
   production

Births

• February 9 - Ernst Mehlich
  Ernst Mehlich
  Ernst Mehlich was a German-Brazilian orchestra conductor and composer. In Brazil he was known as Ernesto Mehlich....
  
  , German-Brazilian conductor and composer
• February 27 - Lotte Lehmann
  Lotte Lehmann
  Lotte Lehmann was a German soprano who was especially associated with German repertory. She gave memorable performances in the operas of Richard Strauss; the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier was considered her greatest role. During her long career, Lehmann also made more than five hundred...
  
  , singer (d. 1976)
• May 10 - Max Steiner
  Max Steiner
  Max Steiner was an Austrian American composer of music for theatre productions and films. He probably is known best for the score he composed for Gone with the Wind and for the score and theme song for the film A Summer Place.Steiner was born Maximilian Raoul Steiner in Vienna, Austria-Hungary...
  
  , composer (d. 1971)
• May 11 - Irving Berlin
  Irving Berlin
  Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
  
  , composer (d. 1989)
• May 27 - Louis Durey
  Louis Durey
  -Life:Louis Durey was born in Paris the son of a local businessman. It was not until he was nineteen years old that he chose to pursue a musical career after hearing a performance of a Claude Debussy work. As a composer he was primarily self-taught. From the beginning, choral music was of great...
  
  , composer, member of Les Six
  Les Six
  Les Six is a name, inspired by The Five, given in 1923 by critic Henri Collet in an article titled ‘Les cinq Russes, les six Français et M. Satie’ to a group of six composers working in Montparnasse whose music is often seen as a reaction against the musical style of Richard Wagner and...
  
  (d. 1979)
• June 3 - Tom Brown
  Tom Brown (trombonist)
  Tom Brown , sometimes known by the nickname Red Brown, was an early New Orleans dixieland jazz trombonist. He also played string bass professionally....
  
  , jazz
  Jazz
  Jazz is a musical art form which originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions....
  
   musician (d. 1958)
• June 6 - Pete Wendling
  Pete Wendling
  Pete Wendling , an American composer and pianist, was born in New York City to German immigrants.He started his working life as a carpenter, but gained fame during the mid 1910s as a popular music composer - producing such hits as Yaaka Hula Hickey Dula, Take Me To The Land Of Jazz, Take Your...
  
  , American
  United States
  The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
  
   composer, pianist, and piano roll recording artist
• June 16 - Bobby Clark
  Bobby Clark (comedian)
  Robert Edwin Clark , known as Bobby Clark, was a minstrel, vaudevillian, performer on stage, film, television and the circus....
  
  , US comedian and singer
• August 16 - Armand J. Piron
  Armand J. Piron
  Armand John "A.J." Piron was an American jazz violinist, band leader, and composer.Piron was born to what was then called a Creole of color family in downtown New Orleans. From his childhood, he had to use a crutch to walk...
  
  , jazz
  Jazz
  Jazz is a musical art form which originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions....
  
   musician (d. 1943)
• September 12 - Maurice Chevalier
  Maurice Chevalier
  Maurice Auguste Chevalier was a French actor, singer, and popular entertainer. Chevalier's signature songs included "Louise", "Mimi", and "Valentine". His trademark was a boater hat, which he always wore on stage with his tuxedo.-Early life:He was born in Paris to a house painter father and mother...
  
  , French singer and actor (d. 1972)
• October 7 - Cecil Coles
  Cecil Coles
  Cecil Frederick Coles , was a Scottish composer who was killed on active service in World War I.Coles was born in Kirkcudbright, and educated at George Watson’s School, Edinburgh. In 1907 he went to the Royal College of Music on a scholarship. He later studied at Edinburgh University and...
  
  , composer (d. 1918)
• December 28 - Gabriel von Wayditch
  Gabriel von Wayditch
  Gabriel von Wayditch was a Hungarian composer who wrote 14 grand operas during his lifetime.Born in Budapest and trained at the National Hungarian Academy of Music , Wayditch studied with masters including Hans von Koessler and Emil von Sauer before emigrating to the United States in 1911...
  
  , American composer of operas (d. 1969)

Deaths

• January 5 - Henri Herz
  Henri Herz
  Henri Herz was a pianist and composer, Austrian by birth, and French by domicile.-Life:Herz was born Heinrich Herz in Vienna...
  
  , pianist and composer (b. 1803)
• January 14 - Stephen Heller
  Stephen Heller
  ----Stephen Heller was a Hungarian composer and pianist whose career spanned the period from Schumann to Bizet, and was an influence for later Romantic composers....
  
  , pianist and composer (b. 1813)
• February 22 - Jean-Delphin Alard, violinist and music teacher (b. 1815)
• March 10 - Ciro Pinsuti
  Ciro Pinsuti
  Ciro Pinsuti was an Anglo-Italian composer.He was born in Sinalunga , Italy, and educated in music, for a career as a pianist, partly in London and partly at Bologna, where he was a pupil of Rossini. From 1848 he made his home in England, where he became a teacher of singing, and in 1856 he was...
  
  , pianist and composer (b. 1829)
• March 29 - Charles-Valentin Alkan
  Charles-Valentin Alkan
  Charles-Valentin Alkan was a French composer and one of the greatest virtuoso pianists of his day. His attachment to his Jewish origins is displayed both in his life and his work. He entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of six, earning many awards, and as an adult became a famous virtuoso...
  
  , French
  France
  France , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
  
   pianist and composer (b. 1813) (killed in freak accident, trapped beneath a falling coat-rack)
• April 21 - Julius Weissenborn
  Julius Weissenborn
  Christian Julius Weissenborn was a bassoonist, teacher and composer. He was principal bassoonist of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra from 1857 - 1887. He taught at the Leipzig Conservatory beginning in 1882...
  
  , bassoonist (b. 1837)
• August 8 - Friedrich Wilhelm Jähns
  Friedrich Wilhelm Jähns
  Friedrich Wilhelm Jähns was a German music scholar, voice teacher, and composer. He is best known for his thematic catalog of the works of Carl Maria von Weber....
  
  , composer, music teacher and cataloguer (b. 1809)
• November 17 - Jakob Dont
  Jakob Dont
  Jakob Dont was an Austrian violinist, composer, and teacher.He was born and died in Vienna. He was taught by Joseph Böhm and Georg Hellmesberger, Sr. at the Vienna Conservatory.Among his students was Leopold Auer....
  
  , violinist and composer (b. 1815)
• December 2 - Franz Xaver Witt
  Franz Xaver Witt
  Franz Xaver Witt was a Catholic priest, church musician, and composer. He was one of the leaders in the reform of Catholic church music in the second half of the 1800s....
  
  , church musician and composer (b. 1834)
• December 26 - Alfred Vance
  Alfred Vance
  Alfred Peek Stevens , best known by his stage name Alfred Vance, was an English singer in the 19th Century music halls.-Early life and family:Vance was born in London in 1839...
  
  , English music hall
  Music hall
  Music 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 and comedian (b. 1839) (died on stage)