1863 in music

Events

• January 6 – Johannes Brahms' Piano Sonata no. 3 is premièred in Vienna, played by the 29-year-old composer. Richard Wagner is among the audience.^[1]
• January 29 – Established composer Giacomo Meyerbeer presents the young Jacques Offenbach to Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, the queen consort of Prussia.^[1]
• February 8 – Richard Wagner conducts a concert of his own music in Prague; Antonín Dvořák is a member of the orchestra.^[1]
• February 25 – Johann Strauss II is appointed musical director of the Hofball.^[1]
• March 15 – In Vienna, Franz Schubert's Der Entfernten D.331 for a male vocal quartet is performed in public for the first time, 35 years after the composer's death.^[1]
• April 19 – Hector Berlioz is presented with the Cross of the Order of Hohenzollern.^[1]
• May 10 – Violinist Joseph Joachim marries contralto Amalie Schneeweiss.
• May 12 – Richard Wagner takes up residence at Penzing, near Vienna.^[1]
• June 20 – Franz Liszt takes up residence at the Dominican monastery of the Madonna del Rosario, Monte Mario, near Rome.^[1]
• July 11 – Pope Pius IX visits Franz Liszt at Monte Mario, and the two hold an impromptu concert.^[1]
• August 3 – 21-year-old Jules Massenet is awarded the First Grand Prix de Rome for his setting of the cantata David Rizzio.^[1]
• September 30 – Georges Bizet's opera, Les pêcheurs de perles receives its première at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris.
• November 2 – John Knowles Paine performs at the inauguration of a new organ at the Music Hall in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.^[1]
• November 4 – Les Troyens, opera by Hector Berlioz, debuts, also at the Théâtre Lyrique
• December 13 – Modest Mussorgsky becomes collegiate secretary at the chief engineering department of the Russian Ministry of Communications.^[1] In the same year, he begins work on an opera, Salammbô, which is never finished.

Published popular music

• "All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight"     w. Ethel Lynn Beers m. John Hill Hewitt
• "Eton Boating Song" w. William Johnson Cory m. Capt. Algernon Drummond
• "Just Before the Battle, Mother" by George F. Root
• "Mother Would Comfort Me" w.m. Charles C. Sawyer
• "Oh My Darling, Clementine" by Percy Montrose & H S. Thompson
• "Sweet and Low" words by Alfred Tennyson, music by Joseph Barnby
• "Tenting on the Old Camp Ground" w.m. Walter Kittredge
• "Weeping Sad And Lonely" w. Charles Carroll Sawyer m. Henry Tucker
• "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again" by Louis Lambert & Patrick Gilmore
• "You Are Going to the Wars, Willie Boy!"     w.m. John Hill Hewitt
• "The Young Volunteer"     w.m. John Hill Hewitt

Classical music

• Anton Bruckner – Study Symphony in F minor
• Franz Liszt – Christus completed about now; Salve Polonia (S 518), Rhapsodie espagnole (S 254), 'Venezia e Napoli' – Tarantella, and St Francis of Paule walking on the waves written
• Camille Saint-Saëns – Piano Trio No. 1 in F major opus 18, Spartacus overture in E♭ major
• Johannes Brahms - Variations on a Theme of Paganini

Opera

• Hector Berlioz – Les Troyens
• Georges Bizet – Les pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers)
• Charles Gounod – Mireille
• Giovanni Pacini – Carmelita (not performed)
• Jacques Offenbach – Il signor Fagotto

Musical theater

• Ixion London production opened at the Royalty Theatre on September 28 and ran for 153 performances

Births

• February 4 – Pauline de Ahna, operatic soprano (died 1950)
• February 19 – Emánuel Moór, composer (died 1931)
• March 20 – Ernesto Nazareth, pianist and composer (died 1934)
• March 21 – Hugo Kaun, conductor, composer and music teacher (died 1932)
• April 4 – Blanche Marchesi, operatic contralto (died 1940)
• April 9 – Ernst Heuser, German composer (died 1942)
• April 19 – Felix Blumenfeld, Russian composer, pianist (died 1931)
• May 10 – Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury, Bengali writer, painter, violin player and composer (died 1915)
• May 12 – Charles Bordes, composer (died 1909)
• June 2 – Felix von Weingartner, composer, conductor (died 1942)
• June 5 – Arthur Somervell (died 1937)
• June 16 – Paul Antonin Vidal, composer (died 1931)
• September 15 – Horatio Parker, composer (died 1919)
• November 1 – Alfred Reisenauer, composer (died 1907)
• December 7 – Pietro Mascagni, composer (died 1945)
• December 17 – Ion Vidu, composer (died 1931)
• December 24 – Enrique Fernández Arbós, violinist, conductor and composer (died 1939)

Deaths

• February 4 – Giuseppe Lillo, composer, 38
• February 25 – Laure Cinti-Damoreau, operatic soprano, 62
• April 8 – Joseph Netherclift, composer, 70
• May 14 – Émile Prudent, composer, 46
• June – Filippo Colini, operatic baritone, 51
• June 7 – Franz Xaver Gruber, composer of "Silent Night", 75
• June 20 – Luigi Felice Rossi, composer, 57
• July 23 – Sophie Lebrun, pianist and composer, 82
• August 5 – Adolf Friedrich Hesse, composer, 53

References