1661 in music
The year 1661 in music involved some significant events.
Events
- April 19 – Maria Cattarina Calegari takes her final vows and becomes a nun at the Benedictine Convent of Santa Margherita in Milan.
- November 4 – Samuel Pepys' diary records a visit to the opera.
- King Louis XIV of France creates the Académie Royale de Danse.
- Jean-Baptiste Lully becomes a French subject.
- First public opera performances in Antwerp, on the stage of the Schouwburgh van de Oude Voetboog.
Classical music
- Thomas Gobert – Pseaume XVIII
- Matthew Locke – Flatt Consort
- Heinrich Schütz – Becker Psalter
- Gaspar de Verlit – Missae et motettae nec non quator antiphonae B. Mariae Virginis, vol. 1
[Opera]
- Antonio Bertali – Il Ciro crescente
- Jacopo Melani – Ercole in Tebe
- Antonio Sartorio – ''Gl'amori infruttuosi di Pirro''
Births
- February – Henri Desmarets, composer
- February 5 – Barbara Kluntz, composer
- June 6 – Giacomo Antonio Perti, composer
- September 2 – Georg Böhm, organist and composer
- November 1 – Florent Carton (Dancourt), librettist
- date unknown – Francesco Gasparini, composer
Deaths
- May 4 – Jean de Cambefort, composer
- May 9 – Alberich Mazak, composer
- June 3 – Gottfried Scheidt, organist and composer
- August 29 – Louis Couperin, harpsichordist and composer
- October – Germain Pinel, harpsichordist and composer
- November 16 – João Lourenço Rebelo, composer
- December 29 – Antoine Girard, librettist