1740 in music

Events

• Johann Sebastian Bach begins to lose his sight.
• Carl Heinrich Graun becomes Kapellmeister to Frederick II of Prussia. Johann Joachim Quantz becomes Frederick's flute teacher.
• Ferdinando Bertoni arrives in Bologna where he becomes a pupil of Giovanni Battista Martini.
• December 26 – The Teatro Regio (Turin) is inaugurated with a performance of Francesco Feo's opera Arsace.

Classical music

• Thomas Arne – Alfred (masque), including the song, "Rule Britannia"
• Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
• *Concerto for 2 Harpsichords in F major, H.408
• *Harpsichord Concerto in A major, H.410
• *Flute Sonata in A minor, H.555
• Christoph Graupner – Violin Sonata in G minor, GWV 711
• George Frideric Handel – L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, HWV 55
• Giuseppe Tartini – Violin Concerto in C major, D.1
• Georg Philipp Telemann – 6 Overtures for Clavier, TWV 32:5–10

Opera

• Bernardo Aliprandi – Semiramide riconosciuta
• Vincenzo Legrenzio Ciampi – La Beatrice
• Baldassare Galuppi – Gustavo primo re di Svezia
• Maurice Greene – The Judgement of Hercules
• George Frideric Handel – Imeneo, HWV 41
• Nicola Porpora – Il trionfo di Camilla
• Luca Antonio Predieri – ''Zenobia''

Publications

• Thomas Arne – Comus. First performed 1738.
• Jean-Baptiste Barrière – 6 Cello Sonatas, Livre 4
• Michel Blavet – 6 Flute Sonatas, Op. 3
• Louis de Caix d'Hervelois – Pièces de viole, Livre 4
• Esprit Philippe Chédeville – 6 Sonatilles galantes, Op. 6
• Nicolas Chédeville – Les Deffis ou l'étude amusante, Op. 9
• Antoine Dauvergne
• *6 Trio Sonatas, Op. 1
• *12 Violin Sonatas, Op. 2
• Michel Richard Delalande – Noëls en Trio avec un Carillon, S.173.24
• George Frideric Handel
• * Op. 6, 12 Concerti Grossi
• * "A Second Set of Six Concertos"
• James Oswald – A Curious Collection of Scots Tunes
• Johan Helmich Roman – Assaggio in G minor, BeRI 314 likely composed earlier.
• Carlo Tessarini – 6 Allettamenti da camera, Op. 3
• Antonio Vivaldi – 6 Cello Sonatas, Le Clerc Op. 14
• Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer – Concerti Armonici

Methods and theory writings

• Michel Corrette – Méthode pour apprendre à jouër la flûtte
• John Frederick Lampe – The Art of Musick
• Johann Mattheson – ''Grundlage einer Ehren-Pforte''

Births

• February 3 – Guillaume Lasceux
• February 4 – Carl Michael Bellman, poet and composer
• February 15 – Ernst Eichner
• May 9 – Giovanni Paisiello, composer
• July 26 – Louis-Augustin Richer, classical singer, singing master and composer
• August 10 – Samuel Arnold (composer),
• October 7 – Samuel Webbe
• November 4 – Augustus Montague Toplady, hymn-writer
• December – Elisabeth Olin, operatic soprano unknown date
• *John Antes, composer
• *Sir Peter Beckford, English peer, patron of Muzio Clementi
• *Samuel Webbe, composer
• probable – Anna Bon, singer and composer

Deaths

• January 5 – Antonio Lotti, composer
• January 13 – William Turner, singer and composer
• January 25 – Geminiano Giacomelli, composer
• February 9 – Vincent Lübeck, organist and composer
• February 25 – Dietrich Bernhard Ludewig
• October 14 – Domenico Alberti, composer
• unknown date
• *André Bouys, painter and copyist
• *Edward Purcell, organist
• *Poul Christian Schindler, composer
• probable – François Dieupart, French composer