1853 in music

Events

• March 5 – Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg sets up in business as a piano manufacturer in New York City, and the firm of Steinway and Sons is born.
• October – Louis Niedermeyer reorganizes and re-opens the school known as the École Choron, which becomes the École Niedermeyer.
• October 1 – The piano manufacturer C. Bechstein Pianofortefabrik is founded by Carl Bechstein in Berlin.
• Julius Blüthner founds Blüthner (piano manufacturer) in Leipzig, Germany.
• October 22 - The overture to Tannhäuser is performed in Boston Music Hall by the Germania Musical Society conducted by Carl Bergmann. It is the first American performance.
• November 1 - Richard Wagner begins composing the music for the The Ring of the Nibelung.
• Louis Moreau Gottschalk returns the United States after eleven years in Europe.
• Brahms meets Joseph Joachim and Robert and Clara Schumann.

Published popular music

• "Farewell My Lilly Dear" by Stephen Foster
• "My Cottage Home" w.m. Alice Hawthorne
• "My Old Kentucky Home" by Stephen Foster
• "P'tit quinquin" (in Picard) by Alexandre Desrousseaux

Classical music

• Louis Moreau Gottschalk – The Banjo, Op. 15
• Franz Liszt
  • Piano Sonata in B minor
  • Hungarian Rhapsodies 1-15
• Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Albert Dietrich – F-A-E Sonata
• Franz Berwald, Piano Trio No. 4 in C major
• Franz Berwald, Piano Quintet No. 1 in C minor
• Camille Saint-Saëns, Piano Quartet in E major
• Camille Saint-Saëns, Symphony No. 1 in E♭ major
• Henryk Wieniawski, Violin Concerto No. 1 (Wieniawski)
• Charles Gounod, Méditation sur le Premier Prélude de Piano de S. Bach, later known as Ave Maria (Bach/Gounod)
• Johannes Brahms - Piano Sonata No. 1 (Brahms), Piano Sonata No. 3 (Brahms)

Opera

• Victor Massé – Les noces de Jeannette
• Karel Miry – Anne Mie (opera in 1 act, premiered on October 9 in Antwerp)
• Giuseppe Verdi
  • Il trovatore (premiered on January 19 at Teatro Apollo in Rome)
  • La traviata (premiered on March 6 at La Fenice in Venice)

Births

• May 17 – Carolina Östberg, opera singer (d. 1929)
• July 24 – Alessandro Parisotti, composer and music editor (d. 1913)
• November 23 – Giuseppina Bozzachi, ballerina (d. 1870)
• December 22 – Teresa Carreño, pianist, singer, conductor and composer (d. 1917)
• December 30 – André Messager, composer (d. 1929)
• date unknown
  • Alfonso Rendano, pianist (d. 1931)
  • Maria Westberg, ballerina (d. 1893)

Deaths

• January 16 – Matteo Carcassi, guitarist and composer (b. 1792)
• March 15 – Giovanni Ricordi, violinist (b. 1785)
• October 3 – George Onslow, composer (b. 1784)
• October 29 – Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmermann, pianist, composer and music teacher (b. 1785)
• October 30 – Pietro Raimondi, composer (b. 1786)
• December 5
  • Johann Peter Heuschkel, oboist, organist and composer (b. 1773)
  • Jeanette Wässelius, operatic soprano
• date unknown – James Hill, folk musician (b. c. 1811)