1696 in music

Events

• Giacomo Antonio Perti becomes maestro di cappella to S Petronio, Bologna, where he remains for the rest of his life.
• Francesco Antonio Pistocchi becomes maestro di cappella to the Duke of Ansbach.

Classical music

• Henrico Albicastro – Il giardino armonico sacro-profano
• Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber – Harmonia artificioso-ariosa
• John Blow – Ode on the Death of Purcell
• Dieterich Buxtehude – VII suonate, op. 2
• Marc-Antoine Charpentier – Ego mater agnitionis, H.371
• Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer – Les pièces de clavessin, Op.2
• Johann Kuhnau – Frische Klavierfrüchte
• Isabella Leonarda – Messe e motetti concertate, Op.18
• Nicola Matteis – A Collection of New Songs
• Franz Xaver Murschhauser – Octi-tonium novum organicum, octo tonis ecclesiasticis, ad Psalmos, & magnificat
• Henry Purcell – A Choice Collection of Lessons for the Harpsichord or Spinnet
• Johann Paul von Westhoff – Six Partitas for solo violin

Opera

• Tomaso Albinoni – Zenone, Imperator d'Oriente
• Giuseppe Aldrovandini – Dafni
• Giovanni Bononcini – Il Trionfo di Camilla
• Sebastián Durón – Salir el amor del mundo
• John Eccles – The Loves of Mars and Venus
• Marin Marais – Ariane et Bacchus
• Bernardo Pasquini – Radamisto
• Daniel Purcell – Brutus of Alba
• Alessandro Scarlatti – La Didone delirante, R.344.30

Births

• February 10 – Johann Melchior Molter, violinist and composer
• February 17 – Ernst Gottlieb Baron, lutenist and composer
• May 23 – Johann Caspar Vogler, organist and composer
• August 12 – Maurice Greene, composer
• November 11 – Andrea Zani, violinist and composer
• December 25 – Prince Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar, amateur composer
• date unknown
• *Pierre Février, organist, harpsichordist and composer
• *Marged ferch Ifan, harpist and wrestler

Deaths

• April 21 – Jacques Gallot, composer
• May 31 – Heinrich Schwemmer, composer and music teacher
• June 29 – Michel Lambert, French composer of airs
• July 25 – Clamor Heinrich Abel, German composer