1864 in music

List of years in music (table)
… 1854 1855 1856 1857 1858 1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 1865 1866 1867 1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 1873 1874 …
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Events

• January 13 – American songwriter Stephen Foster ("Oh! Susanna", "Old Folks at Home") dies aged 37 in New York City leaving a scrap of paper reading "Dear friends and gentle hearts". His parlor song "Beautiful Dreamer" is published in March.
• February 24 – Bedřich Smetana's symphonic poem Hakon Jarl is premiered in Prague.
• February 29 – Composer Gioachino Rossini celebrates his 72nd (17th) birthday with a party. It is 32 years since his last opera.
• May – Richard Wagner meets his new patron, the young Ludwig II of Bavaria, in Munich.
• December 17 – Jacques Offenbach's operetta La Belle Hélène receives its first performance at the Paris Variétés
• Hans von Bülow takes over from Franz Lachner at the Munich opera.
• Mili Balakirev begins sketching his Symphony No. 1. It will not be performed till 1898.

Published popular music

Cover of the 1864 publication of the sheet music of "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!"

• "Beautiful Dreamer" by Stephen Foster
• "Der Deitcher's Dog" ("O Where, O Where Has My Little Dog Gone?") by Septimus Winner
• "The Picture on the Wall" by Henry Clay Work
• "Pretty Polly Perkins of Paddington Green" w. Harry Clifton m. traditional?
• "Shall We Gather at the River?" w.m. Robert Lowry
• "Somebody's Darling" w.m. John Hill Hewitt
• "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! (The Boys Are Marching)" by George F. Root

Classical music

• Gaetano Braga – Souvenir du Rhin
• Johannes Brahms
  • 9 Lieder and Songs, Op.32
  • Piano Quintet Op. 34
• Anton Bruckner
  • Mass No.1 in D minor, WAB 26
  • Herbstlied, WAB 73
  • Um Mitternacht, WAB 89
• Aleksandr Dargomyzhsky – Kazachok
• Félicien David – Allegretto agitato
• Niels Gade – 3 Fantasie pieces for clarinet and piano, Op. 43
• Hermann Goetz – Frühlings-Ouvertüre, Op.15
• Louis Gottschalk – The Dying Poet
• Ferdinand Hiller
  • Operette ohne Text, Op.106
  • 12 Lieder (Hiller Album), Op.111
• Salomon Jadassohn – Symphony No.2, Op.28
• Adolf Jensen
  • Präludium und Romanze, Op.19
  • 7 Gesänge aus dem spanischen Liederbuche, Op.21
  • 6 Lieder, Op.24
  • Piano Sonata, Op.25
• Friedrich Kiel – Piano Concerto
• Heinrich Lichner – 3 Piano Sonatas, Op.4
• William Mason – Ballade et barcarole, Op.15
• Josef Rheinberger – 5 Motets, Op.40
• Gioachino Rossini – Petite messe solennelle
• Ernst Rudorff – String Sextet, Op.5
• Camille Saint-Saëns – Piano Trio No.1, Op.18
• Franz Strauss – Nocturno for Horn and Piano
• Peter Tchaikovsky – The Storm
• Thomas Tellefsen – Trio for piano, violin and cello (Opus 31)
• Stanislas Verroust – Solo de concert No.11, Op.85
• Pauline Viardot – 12 Poems by Pushkin, Fet and Turgenev
• Robert Volkmann – Symphony no. 2
• Władysław Żeleński
  • Valse-caprice, Op.9
  • 2 Morceaux de salon, Op.11

Opera

• Daniel François Esprit Auber – La fiancée du roi de Garbe (premiered January 11 in Paris)
• Flor van Duyse – Rosalinde (libretto by Karel Versnaeyen, premiered in Antwerp)
• Charles Gounod - Mireille, opera premiered on March 19, in Paris
• Karel Miry – Bouchard-d'Avesnes (opera in 5 acts, libretto by Hippoliet van Peene, premiered on March 6 in Ghent)
• Jacques Offenbach – Die Rheinnixen (The Rhine Fairies)
• George Alexander Macfarren – Helvellyn, (opera in 4 acts, libretto by John Oxenford, premiered on November 3 in London)

Musical theatre

• La Belle Hélène (Lyrics: Henri Meilhac & Ludovic Halévy Music: Jacques Offenbach) opens at the Théâtre des Variétés, Paris, on December 17.

Births

• February 6 – John Henry Mackay, lyricist (died 1933)
• February 7
  • Ricardo Castro, Mexican concert pianist and composer (d. 1907)
  • Arthur Collins, singer (d. 1933)
• February 9 – Miina Härma, Estonian organist, composer, and conductor (d. 1941)
• March 12 – Alice Tegnér, organist, composer (d. 1943)
• April 10 – Eugen d'Albert, composer, pianist (d. 1932)
• May 23 – Louis Glass, composer (d. 1936)
• June 11 – Richard Strauss, composer, conductor (d. 1949)
• July 6 – Alberto Nepomuceno, composer and conductor (d. 1920)
• July 20 – Erik Axel Karlfeldt, lyricist (died 1931)
• August 18 – Gemma Bellincioni, operatic soprano (d. 1950)
• October 7 – Louis F. Gottschalk, composer (d. 1934)
• date unknown – Alice Esty, operatic soprano (d. 1935)

Deaths

• January 13 – Stephen Foster, songwriter (b. 1826)
• January 15 – Isaac Nathan, English-born composer and musicologist, "father of Australian music" (b. c.1791)
• January 26 – Otto Lindblad, composer (b. 1809)
• February 16 – Václav Jindřich Veit, lawyer and composer (b. 1806)
• March 30 – Louis Schindelmeisser, clarinettist, conductor and composer (b. 1811)
• May 2 – Giacomo Meyerbeer, composer (b. 1791)
• June 3 – Anna Maria Sessi, opera singer (b. 1790)
• July 28 – Johann Hermann Kufferath, composer (born 1797)
• August 13 – Berthold Sigismund, lyricist (born 1819)
• September 4 – Manuel Antonio Carreño, Venezuelan musician, teacher and diplomat (b. 1812)
• October 1 – Christian Friedrich Ludwig Buschmann, musical instrument maker (b. 1805)
• October 7 – Apollon Grigoryev, poet and songwriter (b. 1822) (alcoholism)
• December 20 – Josef Proksch, pianist and composer (b. 1794)