1849 in music

Events

• April 16 – Giacomo Meyerbeer's grand opera Le prophète is premièred by the Paris Opera at the Salle Le Peletier with Pauline Viardot in the mezzo-soprano role, her first with the Opera. Stage effects include electric light, ballet on roller skates and the use of saxhorns. The audience includes Napoleon III, Berlioz, the terminally ill Chopin, and Turgenev. Its world tour begins on July 24 in London.
• May 3–9 – Richard Wagner is an active participant in the May Uprising in Dresden, suppressed by the Kingdom of Saxony, and is forced to flee to Zürich.
• September 22 – Johann Strauss I fails to turn up to a banquet in honour of Field Marshal Joseph Radetzky von Radetz, where he is expected to perform a new work. His absence is explained by the fact that he had contracted scarlet fever from one of his illegitimate children while working on the new composition; he dies a few days later in Vienna aged 45.
• October 30 – Funeral of Frédéric Chopin at La Madeleine, Paris, followed by burial of his body at Père Lachaise Cemetery.
• November – Hungarian pianist and composer Stephen Heller makes his first visit to London on a concert tour.

  Classical music

• Hector Berlioz – Te Deum
• Jakob Dont – 24 Etudes or Caprices, Op. 35
• Stephen Heller – 25 Etudes, Op. 47
• Karol Lipinski – Fantaisie sur des airs napolitains nationaux, Op. 31
• Franz Liszt
• *Tasso
• *Totentanz
• *Funérailles
• Hans Christian Lumbye
• *Amalia Vals
• *Caroline Polka Mazurka
• Ludvig Norman – Piano Trio No. 1 in D major, Op. 4
• Robert Schumann
• *Fantasiestücke, Op. 73
• *Manfred Op. 115, overture and Incidental music
• Johann Strauss, Jr.
• *Annika-Quadrille, Op. 53
• *Burschen-Lieder Walzer, Op. 55
• *Einheits-Klänge Walzer, Op. 62
• *Fantasiebilder Walzer, Op. 64
• *D'Woaldbuama, Op. 66

  Opera

• Giacomo Meyerbeer – Le prophète
• Otto Nicolai – The Merry Wives of Windsor
• Lauro Rossi – Il domino nero
• Ambrose Thomas – Le caïd
• Giuseppe Verdi – La battaglia di Legnano

  Popular music

• "Dolcy Jones" by Stephen Foster
• "Nelly Was a Lady" by Stephen Foster
• "Once in Royal David's City", words: Cecil Frances Alexander, music: Henry Gauntlett. The words were written as a poem by Mrs Alexander in 1848.
• "Santa Lucia"

  Births

• May 25 – Thomas "Blind Tom" Wiggins, composer and pianist
• May 26 – Hubert von Herkomer, artist and composer
• July 4 – Antonina Miliukova, wife of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
• July 18 – Anna Judic, entertainer
• July 22 – Géza Zichy, disabled pianist
• August 18 – Benjamin Godard, violinist and composer
• August 20 – Selina Dolaro, actress and singer
• September 22 – Olena Falkman, concert vocalist
• December 4 – Ernesto Köhler, flautist and composer
• December 14 – François Cellier, conductor and composer

  Deaths

• February 8 – François Antoine Habeneck, violinist and conductor
• May 11 – Otto Nicolai, composer
• June 3 – François de Fossa, guitarist and composer
• June 10 – Friedrich Kalkbrenner, pianist and composer
• September 25 – Johann Strauss I, composer
• October 17 – Frédéric Chopin, pianist and composer
• December 14 – Conradin Kreutzer, conductor and composer
• December 29 – Dionisio Aguado, guitarist and composer