1849 in music

Events

• 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 while working on the new composition; he dies a few days later.
• Hungarian pianist and composer Stephen Heller visits London on a concert tour.

Classical music

• Hector Berlioz – Te Deum
• Franz Liszt
  • Tasso
  • Totentanz
  • Funérailles
• Robert Schumann – Manfred, Op. 115, overture and incidental music.

Opera

• Giacomo Meyerbeer – Le prophète
• Otto Nicolai – The Merry Wives of Windsor
• Giuseppe Verdi – La battaglia di Legnano

Popular music

• "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" (first published version)

Births

• May 26 – Hubert von Herkomer, artist and composer (d. 1914)
• July 4 – Antonina Miliukova, wife of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (d. 1917)
• July 18 – Anna Judic, entertainer (d. 1911)
• July 22 – Géza Zichy, disabled pianist (d. 1924)
• August 20 – Selina Dolaro, actress and singer (d. 1889)
• December 4 – Ernesto Köhler, flautist and composer (d. 1907)
• December 14 – François Cellier, conductor and composer (d. 1914)

Deaths

• February 8 – François Antoine Habeneck, violinist and conductor (b. 1781)
• May 11 – Otto Nicolai, composer (b. 1810)
• June 3 – François de Fossa, guitarist and composer (b. 1775)
• June 10 – Friedrich Kalkbrenner, pianist and composer (b. 1785)
• September 25 – Johann Strauss I, composer (b. 1804)
• October 17 – Frédéric Chopin, pianist and composer (b. 1810)
• December 14 – Conradin Kreutzer, conductor and composer (b. 1780)
• December 29 – Dionisio Aguado, guitarist and composer (b. 1784)