1859 in music

Events

• January 14 – Hans von Bülow interrupts a performance of Franz Liszt's Die Ideale at the Berlin Singakademie to ask for hostile elements in the audience to be silent.
• January 22 – The First Piano Concerto of Johannes Brahms is given its first public performance in Hanover.
• February 8 – Count Michael Wielhorsky invites musical associates to his home in an attempt to revive the Symphonic Society; this indirectly results in the formation of the Russian Musical Society, under the patronage of Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna and her protégé, Anton Rubinstein.
• March 4 – Charter of the French Opera House, New Orleans, which opens on December 1 of the same year with a gala performance of Rossini's William Tell.
• March 11 – Giuseppe Verdi announces his retirement to friends at a dinner party.
• March 12 – The Prelude to Act 1 of Tristan und Isolde receives its first public performance at the Sophieninselsaal in Prague, in a charity concert in aid of poor medical students, conducted by Hans von Bülow, who provided his own concert ending for the occasion.
• April 3 – Richard Wagner takes up residence in Lucerne, Switzerland.
• April 4 – Bryants Minstrels give the first performance of "Dixie" at Mechanics' Hall, New York City.
• April 4 – Tannhäuser is performed at the Stadt Theater in New York City under the musical direction of Carl Bergmann. It is the first performance of a Wagner opera in the United States.
• May 6 – At the first concert of the Victoria Philharmonic Society, its future conductor John Bayley is a soloist on both clarinet and violin.
• July 1 – A monument to George Frideric Handel is unveiled in his birthplace, Halle; Franz Liszt is among those present.
• October 23 – Richard Wagner and an ailing Hector Berlioz meet in Paris and make up their differences.
• December 19 – César Franck inaugurates the new organ at the basilia of Sainte-Clotilde, Paris, an instrument built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll.
• Alexander Borodin begins a period of chemical research at Heidelberg, working on benzene derivatives.
• Alberto Mazzucato becomes musical director of La Scala opera house.
• Richard Wagner finishes his opera Tristan und Isolde. The Prelude to Act 1 receives its first public performance on March 2.

  Published popular music

• "Darling little blue eyed Nell" w. B. E. Woolf m. Frederick Buckley
• In 1859, John Freeman Young published the English translation of Silent Night that is most frequently sung today.

  Classical music

• Charles-Valentin Alkan – Concerto for Solo Piano
• Mily Balakirev – Overture to King Lear
• Johannes Brahms
• *Piano Concerto No. 1
• *Serenade No. 2 in A
• Max Bruch – String Quartet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 9
• Felix Draeseke – Helges Treue
• Edvard Grieg
• * 23 Little Piano Pieces, EG 104
• * Siehst du das Meer, for voice and piano
• Fromental Halévy – Italie
• Franz Liszt
• *Totentanz
• *first version of Psalm 23
• *Prelude after a theme from Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen for piano
• *Deux Épisodes d'apres le Faust de Lenau
• *Te Deum'' for chorus, organ, brass and percussion

  Opera

• César Cui – The Mandarin's Son
• Léo Delibes – L'Omelette à la Follembuche
• Charles Gounod – Faust first performed in Paris. Libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on a work by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
• Giacomo Meyerbeer – Le pardon de Ploërmel
• Giuseppe Verdi – Un ballo in maschera

  Musical theater

• Jacques Offenbach – Les vivandières de la grande armée

  Births

• January 26 – W. O. Forsyth, pianist and composer
• February 1 – Victor Herbert, cellist, conductor and composer
• April 3 – Reginald de Koven, US composer
• April 5 – Wilhelm Harteveld, composer
• April 11 – Basil Harwood, organist and composer
• May 13 – August Enna, composer
• June 22 – Frank Heino Damrosch, founder of Institute of Music
• June 27 – Mildred J. Hill, composer of "Happy Birthday to You"
• July 21 – Charles H. Taylor, lyricist
• September 21 – Otto Lohse, conductor and composer
• September 24 – Julius Klengel, cellist, composer
• October 14 – Camille Chevillard, conductor and composer
• October 20 – Guglielmo Zuelli, opera composer
• October 26 – Arthur Friedheim, Russian-born pianist
• November 15 – Joseph Vidal, composer
• November 19 – Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, conductor and composer
• November 22 – Cecil Sharp, folk music revivalist
• November 30 – Sergei Lyapunov, pianist and composer
• December 21 – Max Fiedler, conductor and composer
• December 23 – Adrian Ross, English lyricist
• December 27 – William Henry Hadow, musicologist
• December 30 – Josef Bohuslav Foerster, composer

  Deaths

• January 7 – Peter Ferdinand Funck, violinist and composer
• January 13 – Francisco José Debali, composer
• February 6 – Jane Stirling, pianist and friend of Frédéric Chopin
• March 14 – Nicola Tacchinardi, cellist and operatic tenor
• April 14 – Ignaz Bösendorfer, piano manufacturer
• July 23 – Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, actress, singer and poet
• July 29 – Auguste Mathieu Panseron, composer and singing teacher
• August 18 – Antonio D'Antoni, opera composer and conductor
• August 28 – Edward Holmes, musicologist, music critic, pianist and music educator
• October 16 – John Fane, 11th Earl of Westmorland, soldier, politician, diplomat and musician
• October 22 – Louis Spohr, violinist, conductor and composer
• November 7 – Carl Gottlieb Reißiger, Kapellmeister and composer
• December 13 – Daniel Liszt, son of Franz Liszt and Countess Marie d'Agoult
• December 31 – Luigi Ricci, composer
• Date unknown – Lewis Henry Lavenu, conductor, composer and impresario