1873 in music

This article is about music-related events in 1873.

Events

• April — The Fisk Jubilee Singers, an African American a cappella ensemble, perform before Queen Victoria during their first European tour.
• August 27 — Sir Arthur Sullivan's oratorio The Light of the World (inspired by William Holman Hunt's painting of the same name) is premièred at the Birmingham Festival.
• Joseph Parry becomes Professor of Music at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.
• Therese Malten makes her solo debut as Pamina in The Magic Flute at Dresden.

Published popular music

• "The German Polka" by Gus Williams (vaudeville)
• "Good Sweet Ham" by Henry Hart
• "Home on the Range" by Daniel Kelly & Brewster M. Higley
• "I'se Gwine Back to Dixie" by Charles A. White (musician)
• "Silver Threads Among the Gold" w. Eben Eugene Rexford m. Hart Pease Danks

Classical music

• Johannes Brahms
  • Two String Quartets, Op. 51
  • Variations on a Theme by Haydn
• Anton Bruckner - Symphony No. 3 (Bruckner)
• Antonín Dvořák — String Quartet No. 5 (Dvořák); String Quartet no. 6 in A
• Hermann Goetz — Symphony in F, op. 9 (premiered 1874. . Some sources give 1866 for composition however.)
• Giuseppe Verdi — String Quartet in E minor

Opera

• Léo Delibes — Le roi l'a dit
• Karel Miry — Muziek in t'huisgezin (opera in 1 act, libretto by N. Destanberg)

Musical theater

• 1492 Up To Date, Libretto by R. A. Barnet, music by Carl Pflueger

Births

• February 1 — Joseph Allard, fiddler and composer (d. 1947)
• February 13 — Feodor Chaliapin, operatic bass (d. 1938)
• February 27 — Enrico Caruso, operatic tenor (d. 1921)
• March 19 — Max Reger, German composer (d. 1916)
• April 1 — Sergei Rachmaninoff, Russian composer (d. 1943)
• April 18 — Jean Roger-Ducasse, French composer (d. 1954)
• May 1 — Harry Evans, composer (d. 1914)
• June 1 — Ada Jones, singer (d. 1922)
• June 16 — Antonina Nezhdanova, operatic soprano (d. 1950)
• July 11 — Nat M. Wills, singer, comedian, and actor (d. 1917)
• August 11 — J. Rosamond Johnson, US composer and singer
• August 18 — Otto Harbach, lyricist (d. 1963)
• September 21 — Papa Jack Laine, bandleader (d. 1966)
• October 14 — José Serrano, composer (d. 1941)
• October 23 — Ricardo Villa, composer (d. 1935)
• November 1 — Charles Quef, French organist and composer (d. 1931)
• November 16 — W. C. Handy, songwriter (d. 1958)
• December 14 — Joseph Jongen, Belgian organist and composer (d. 1953)

Deaths

• January 3 — John Lodge Ellerton, composer (b. 1801)
• January 28 — Henry Hugo Pierson, composer (b. 1815)
• February 14 — Charles Samuel Bovy-Lysberg, composer and pianist (b. 1821)
• March 31 — Domenico Donzelli, operatic tenor (b. 1790)
• April 13 — Carlo Coccia, opera composer (b. 1782)
• April 19 — Pierre-Chéri Lafont, actor and singer (b. 1797)
• May 13 — Kašpar Mašek, composer (b. 1794)
• June 2 — François George-Hainl, cellist, conductor and composer (b. 1807)
• July 4 — Prince Józef Michal Poniatowski, operatic tenor and composer (b. 1816)
• July 19 — Ferdinand David, violinist and composer (b. 1810)
• August 26 — Karl Wilhelm, choral director (b. 1815)
• September 26 — Roderich Benedix, librettist and singer (b. 1811)
• October 6 — Friedrich Wieck, music teacher and father of Clara Schumann (b. 1785)
• October 8 — Albrecht Agthe, music teacher (b. 1790)