1869 in music

Events

• February 28 – The premiere of Brahms' Rinaldo took place in Vienna at a concert of the Akademischer Gesangverein. The composer conducted, with the tenor Gustav Walter, a student chorus numbering 300, and the Court Opera orchestra.
• April 3 – Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto is premiered at Copenhagen's Casino.
• May 25 – The Vienna State Opera is inaugurated with a performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni.
• September 22 – Richard Wagner's opera Das Rheingold debuts at the Königlich Hof- und Nationaltheater in Munich.
• Approximate date – Start of "golden age" of flamenco.
• Tchaikovsky completes the initial version of Romeo and Juliet. It will be revised the next year and in 1880.

Published popular music

• "The Little Brown Jug" by J. Eastburn Winner
• "Now the Day is Over" w. Sabine Baring-Gould m. Joseph Barnby
• "Shoo Fly, Don't Bother Me" attributed to T. Brigham Bishop
• "Sweet Genevieve" w. George Cooper m. Henry Tucker

  Classical music

• Johannes Brahms
• *Ein deutsches Requiem
• *Hungarian Dances
• George Stephanescu – Symphony in A
• Mili Balakirev – Islamey an "Oriental Fantasy" for piano.
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Six Romances, Op. 6 including None but the lonely heart

  Opera

• Frederic Clay – Ages Ago
• Karel Miry – Een engel op wacht
• Richard Wagner – Das Rheingold

  Births

• January 20 – George Hamlin, American opera singer
• February 1 – Kerry Mills, American violinist and songwriter
• February 3 – Giulio Gatti-Casazza, opera manager
• March 3 – Henry Wood, conductor
• May 5 – Hans Pfitzner, composer
• June 6 – Siegfried Wagner, composer
• July 9 – Arnold Volpe, composer
• July 13 – Florence Perry, opera singer
• August 14 – Armas Järnefelt, Finnish composer and conductor
• September 2 – Carlos Hartling, composer of the national anthem of Honduras
• September 6 – Walford Davies, British composer and organist, Master of the King's Musick
• September 21 – Henryk Melcer-Szczawiński, Polish composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher
• September 30 – E. A. Couturier, American cornet virtuoso, composer, inventor and instrument manufacturer
• October 8 – Komitas, born Soghomon Soghomonian, Turkish Armenian priest and ethnomusicologist
• date unknown
• *Kate Carney, born Catherine Pattinson, English music hall singer
• *Maximilian Maksakov, born Max Schwartz, Austro-Russian operatic baritone

  Deaths

• January 10 – Joan Aulí, organist and composer
• January 17 – Alexander Dargomyzhsky, Russian composer
• January 30 – Charlotte Alington Barnard, English ballad composer
• March 8 – Hector Berlioz, composer
• March 23 – Charles Lucas, cellist
• April 1 – Alexander Dreyschock, pianist and composer
• April 12 – Antonie Brentano, friend of Beethoven
• April 15 – August Wilhelm Bach, German composer and organist
• April 20 – Carl Loewe, composer, baritone, conductor
• May 10 – Bernhard Molique, German violinist and composer
• June 4 – Joseph Ascher, pianist and composer
• June 15 – Albert Grisar, composer
• August 13 – Giuseppe Persiani, opera composer
• August 24 – Macedonio Alcalá, pianist, violinist and songwriter
• November 29 – Giulia Grisi, opera singer
• December 18 – Louis Moreau Gottschalk, composer and pianist
• December 23 – Julian Fontana, pianist
• December 31 – Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wély, organist