1749 in music
Events
- March 4 – Johann Sebastian Bach revives his St John Passion BWV 245 with some textual and instrumentational changes at St. Nicholas Church, Leipzig. In it, he uses the contrabassoon for the first time.
- March 17 – George Frideric Handel's oratorio Solomon first performed, at the Theatre Royal in London.
- April 27 – The first official performance of Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks, in London, finishes early due to the outbreak of fire.
- May 27 – Handel stages a benefit concert at and for the Foundling Hospital in London at which the Foundling Hospital Anthem is premiered.
- 1749–1750 – Bach revises his The Art of Fugue BWV 1080, but the project will be left incomplete by his death and published in 1751 by his son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach in Berlin.
Popular Music
- Charles Wesley – "Soldiers of Christ, Arise"
Classical music
- Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
- *Magnificat
- *Flute Sonata in E major, H.506
- Johann Sebastian Bach – Mass in B minor
- George Frideric Handel
- *Theodora, HWV 68, oratorio
- *Music for the Royal Fireworks, HWV 351
- Niccolò Jommelli – ''La cantata e disfida di Don Trastullo''
Opera
- Joseph-Hyacinthe Ferrand – Zélie
- Baldassare Galuppi – L'Arcadia in Brenta
- Carl Heinrich Graun – Coriolano, GraunWV B:I:20
- George Frideric Handel – Alceste, HWV 45
- Jean-Joseph de Mondonville – Le carnaval du Parnasse
- José Nebra – El mágico Apolonio
- Jean-Philippe Rameau – Zoroastre, RCT 62
Publications
- Claude-Bénigne Balbastre – Livre contenant des pièces de différent genre
- Richard Mudge – 6 Concertos in 7 Parts
- Filippo Palma – Sei arie con istromenti, Op. 3
Methods and theory writings
- Michel Corrette – Les Amusemens du Parnasse
- Francesco Geminiani – A Treatise of Good Taste in the Art of Musick
- Philipp Christoph Hartung – Musicus Theoretico-Practicus
- Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg – Der critische Musicus an der Spree
- Johann Mattheson – ''Abhandlung von den Pantomimen''
Births
- January 16 – Vittorio Alfieri, librettist and dramatist
- March 10 – Lorenzo Da Ponte, Italian librettist
- May – Elisabeth Soligny, French ballerina and ballet mistress
- May 5 – Jean-Frédéric Edelmann, composer
- June 15 – Georg Joseph Vogler, German composer, teacher and theorist
- August 21 – Edvard Storm, librettist and poet
- August 28 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, librettist and writer
- September 1 – Lorenz Leopold Haschka, librettist and writer
- October 4 – Jean-Louis Duport, composer and cellist
- December 17 – Domenico Cimarosa, composer
- December 30 – Anton Kraft, Czech composer
- date unknown – Marija Zubova, composer
Deaths
- February 7 – André Cardinal Destouches, French composer of opera
- June 11 – Johann Bernhard Bach, organist and composer, second cousin of Johann Sebastian Bach
- June 18 – Ambrose Philips, librettist and poet
- October 26 – Louis-Nicolas Clérambault, composer
- November 19 – Carl Heinrich Biber, composer
- November 27 – Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel, composer
- December 19 – Francesco Antonio Bonporti, priest and composer date unknown – Johann Ernst Galliard, composer