1743 in music

Events

• March 23 – English premiere of Handel's Messiah before royalty at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London.
• Johann Sebastian Bach examines the organ at the Johanniskirche, Leipzig.
• 1743–1746 Bach revises his St Matthew Passion. No evidence of version being performed.

  Classical music

• Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach – Keyboard Sonata in B minor, H.32.5
• William Boyce – Solomon
• Maurice Greene – "Thou visitest the earth"
• George Frideric Handel
• *Samson
• *Semele, HWV 58
• *Joseph and His Brethren, HWV 59
• *Te Deum in D major, HWV 283
• *Organ Concerto in A major, HWV 307
• Niccolò Jommelli – La Betulia liberata
• Johann Ludwig Krebs – 6 Trios, Krebs-WV 317–322
• James Oswald – Colin's Kisses, a set of 12 songs.
• Giuseppe Tartini – 12 Violin Sonatas, published in Rome in 1745 as Op. 2 and in Paris, ca. 1747 as Op. 3
• Valentin Rathgeber – Pastorellen für die Weihnachtszeit, R 322

  Opera

• Joseph Bodin de Boismortier – Don Quichotte chez la duchesse, Op.97
• Bernard de Bury – Les Caractères de la folie
• Baldassare Galuppi – Enrico
• Christoph Willibald Gluck – Demofoonte, Wq.3
• Carl Heinrich Graun – Artaserse
• Johann Adolph Hasse – Antigono
• Niccolò Jommelli – Demofoonte
• Domingo Terradellas – Merope

  Publications

• Francesco Geminiani – Pièces de clavecin tirées des differens ouvrages de Mr F. Geminiani adaptées par luy même
• Maurice Greene – 40 Select Anthems in Score
• Louis-Gabriel Guillemain – 6 Sonates en quatuors, ou conversations galantes, for flute, violin, viola da gamba, and basso continuo, Op. 12
• Jean-Marie Leclair – Quatrième livre de sonates, for violin and basso continuo, Op. 9
• Giovanni Benedetto Platti – 6 Flute Sonatas, Op. 3
• Giuseppe Sammartini – 12 Trio Sonatas, Op. 3
• Giuseppe Tartini – VI Sonate, for violin and basso continuo, Op. 2

  Births

• February 19 – Luigi Boccherini, composer
• May 17 – Christoph Bernhard Verspoell, composer and priest
• May 21 – François Duval, dancer
• July 6 – Valentin Adamberger, operatic tenor
• July 14 – Gavrila Derzhavin, poet
• September 30 – Christian Ehregott Weinlig, cantor and composer
• October 5 – Giuseppe Gazzaniga, composer
• October 10 – Marie-Madeleine Guimard, ballerina
• November 18 – Johannes Ewald, librettist and dramatist
• December 7 – Johann Joachim Eschenburg, translator
• Date unknown
• *Charles-Georges Boyer, music publisher
• *George Saville Carey, librettist and entertainer

  Deaths

• February 1 – Giuseppe Ottavio Pitoni
• February 6 – Toussaint Bertin de la Doué, composer
• February 7 – Lodovico Giustini, composer
• March 9 – Jean-Baptiste de Lully, son of Jean-Baptiste Lully
• March 16 – Jean-Baptiste Matho, composer
• April 20 – Alexandre-François Desportes, copyist and painter
• July 12 – Johann Bernhard Bach, organist and composer
• August 13 – Johann Elias Schlegel, librettist and poet
• September 14 – Georg von Bertouch, composer