1864 in music

Events

• January 13 – American songwriter Stephen Foster dies aged 37 in New York City leaving a scrap of paper reading "Dear friends and gentle hearts". His parlor song "Beautiful Dreamer" is published in March.
• February 24 – Bedřich Smetana's symphonic poem Hakon Jarl is premiered in Prague.
• February 29 – Composer Gioachino Rossini celebrates his 72nd birthday with a party. It is 32 years since his last opera.
• May – Richard Wagner meets his new patron, the young Ludwig II of Bavaria, in Munich.
• December 17 – Jacques Offenbach's operetta La Belle Hélène receives its first performance at the Paris Variétés
• Hans von Bülow takes over from Franz Lachner at the Munich opera.
• Mili Balakirev begins sketching his Symphony No. 1. It will not be performed till 1898.

Published popular music

• "Beautiful Dreamer" by Stephen Foster
• "Der Deitcher's Dog" by Septimus Winner
• "The Picture on the Wall" by Henry Clay Work
• "Pretty Polly Perkins of Paddington Green" w. Harry Clifton m. traditional?
• "Shall We Gather at the River?" w.m. Robert Lowry
• "Somebody's Darling" w.m. John Hill Hewitt
• "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! " by George F. Root

Classical music

• Gaetano Braga – Souvenir du Rhin
• Johannes Brahms
• *9 Lieder and Songs, Op.32
• *Piano Quintet Op. 34
• Anton Bruckner
• *Mass No.1 in D minor, WAB 26
• *Herbstlied, WAB 73
• *Um Mitternacht, WAB 89
• Aleksandr Dargomyzhsky – Kazachok
• Félicien David – Allegretto agitato
• Niels Gade – 3 Fantasie pieces for clarinet and piano, Op. 43
• Hermann Goetz – Frühlings-Ouvertüre, Op.15
• Louis Gottschalk – The Dying Poet
• Ferdinand Hiller
• *Operette ohne Text, Op.106
• *12 Lieder, Op.111
• Salomon Jadassohn – Symphony No.2, Op.28
• Adolf Jensen
• *Präludium und Romanze, Op.19
• *7 Gesänge aus dem spanischen Liederbuche, Op.21
• *6 Lieder, Op.24
• *Piano Sonata, Op.25
• Friedrich Kiel – Piano Concerto
• Heinrich Lichner – 3 Piano Sonatas, Op.4
• William Mason – Ballade et barcarole, Op.15
• Josef Rheinberger – 5 Motets, Op.40
• Gioachino Rossini – Petite messe solennelle
• Ernst Rudorff – String Sextet, Op.5
• Camille Saint-Saëns – Piano Trio No.1, Op.18
• Franz Strauss – Nocturno for Horn and Piano
• Peter Tchaikovsky – The Storm
• Thomas Tellefsen – Trio for piano, violin and cello
• Stanislas Verroust – Solo de concert No.11, Op.85
• Pauline Viardot – 12 Poems by Pushkin, Fet and Turgenev
• Robert Volkmann – Symphony no. 2
• Władysław Żeleński
• *Valse-caprice, Op.9
• *2 Morceaux de salon, Op.11

Opera

• Daniel François Esprit Auber – La fiancée du roi de Garbe
• Flor van Duyse – Rosalinde
• Charles Gounod - Mireille, opera premiered on March 19, in Paris
• Karel Miry – Bouchard-d'Avesnes
• Jacques Offenbach – Die Rheinnixen
• George Alexander Macfarren – Helvellyn,

Musical theatre

• La Belle Hélène opens at the Théâtre des Variétés, Paris, on December 17.

Births

• February 6 – John Henry Mackay, lyricist
• February 7
• *Ricardo Castro, Mexican concert pianist and composer
• *Arthur Collins, singer
• February 9 – Miina Härma, Estonian organist, composer, and conductor
• March 12 – Alice Tegnér, organist, composer
• March 18 – Giorgio M. Sulli, conductor, composer, and voice teacher
• April 10 – Eugen d'Albert, composer, pianist
• May 23 – Louis Glass, composer
• June 11 – Richard Strauss, composer, conductor
• June 30 – William Lavin, tenor
• July 6 – Alberto Nepomuceno, composer and conductor
• July 20 – Erik Axel Karlfeldt, lyricist
• August 18 – Gemma Bellincioni, operatic soprano
• October 7 – Louis F. Gottschalk, composer
• date unknown – Alice Esty, operatic soprano

Deaths

• January 13 – Stephen Foster, songwriter
• January 15 – Isaac Nathan, English-born composer and musicologist, "father of Australian music"
• January 26 – Otto Lindblad, composer
• February 16 – Václav Jindřich Veit, lawyer and composer
• March 30 – Louis Schindelmeisser, clarinettist, conductor and composer
• May 2 – Giacomo Meyerbeer, composer
• June 3 – Anna Maria Sessi, opera singer
• July 28 – Johann Hermann Kufferath, composer
• August 13 – Berthold Sigismund, lyricist
• September 4 – Manuel Antonio Carreño, Venezuelan musician, teacher and diplomat
• October 1 – Christian Friedrich Ludwig Buschmann, musical instrument maker
• October 7 – Apollon Grigoryev, poet and songwriter
• December 20 – Josef Proksch, pianist and composer