1786 in music

List of years in music (table)
... 1776 ^. 1777 ^. 1778 ^. 1779 ^. 1780 ^. 1781 ^. 1782 ... 1783 1784 1785 -1786- 1787 1788 1789 ... 1790 ^. 1791 ^. 1792 ^. 1793 ^. 1794 ^. 1795 ^. 1796 ...
Art ^. Archaeology ^. Architecture ^. Literature ^. Music ^. Philosophy ^. Science +...

Events

January 21 - Luigi Boccherini becomes an official composer to Prince Frederick William of Prussia.^[1]
February 7 - Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, presents a festival at Schönbrunn Palace, at which new compositions by both Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri are performed.^[1]
April 28 - Leopold Mozart writes to his daughter, Maria Anna Mozart, predicting failure for his son's latest opera, The Marriage of Figaro.^[1]
October 18 - Leopold Mozart is given a blood test on the same day that his daughter-in-law Constanze Mozart gives birth to her third child, Johann Thomas Leopold; the baby dies a month later, Leopold the following year.^[1]
November 7 – America's oldest singing society is founded as the Stoughton Musical Society.
November 24 - Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf unsuccessfully seeks employment with the newly enthroned King Frederick William II of Prussia.^[1]
In Britain, William Parsons succeeds John Stanley as Master of the King's Musick.
In Benares, Jiwan Shah and Francis Fowke conduct an experiment comparing the pitch of the harpsichord with that of a traditional Indian instrument.
Georg Joseph Vogler is appointed Kapellmeister to King Gustav III of Sweden.

Gioacchino Albertini – Virginia
Bonifazio Asioli – Le nozze in villa
Dmitri Stepanovich Bortniansky – Le Faucon
Nicolas Dalayrac – Nina
François-Joseph Gossec - Rosine, ou L’épouse abandonnée
André Grétry - Amphitryon
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Der Schauspieldirektor (The Impresario)
- Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) (first performed in Vienna, libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte).
Antonio Salieri
- Les Horaces
- Prima la musica e poi le parole
Giuseppe Sarti – Armida e Rinaldo

January 3 – Johann Christian Friedrich Schneider, composer
June 21 – Charles Edward Horn, singer and composer (died 1849)
September 11 – Friedrich Kuhlau, composer (died 1832)
September 27 - José Mariano Elízaga, composer (died 1842)
November 10 - Carl Eberwein, violinist and composer (died 1868)
November 18
- Carl Maria von Weber, composer (or December 18)
- Sir Henry Bishop, Professor of Music at Oxford
December 20 – Pietro Raimondi, composer
date unknown
- Konstantinos Nikolopoulos, composer (died 1841)
- Elena Pucić-Sorkočević, composer (died 1865)

January 4 - Moses Mendelssohn, philosopher and grandfather of composers Felix Mendelssohn and Fanny Mendelssohn (born 1729)
January 14 – Michael Arne, composer (born c.1740)
February 16 - Johann Georg Schürer, composer (born 1720)
March 7 – Frantisek Benda, composer (born 1709)
March 21 - Johann Gottlieb Preller, cantor and composer (born 1727)
April 13 - Jan Tomáš Kuzník, composer and music teacher (born 1716)
May 19 – John Stanley, composer (born 1712)
June 2 - Giovanni Battista Lampugnani, composer (born 1706)
July - Sophia Baddeley, actress and singer (born 1745)
July 29 – Franz Asplmayr, composer (born 1728)
August 17 – King Frederick II of Prussia, amateur composer (born 1712)
September 6 - Karl von Ordóñez, composer (born 1734)
September 18 – Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, musical instrument maker (born 1711)
October 6 – Antonio Sacchini, composer (born 1730)