1882 in music

Specific locations

• 1882 in Finnish music
• 1882 in Norwegian music
• 1882 in Swedish music

Events

• January – Richard Wagner completes his opera Parsifal
• July 26 – Wagner's Parsifal is premièred at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus under the baton of Hermann Levi with the tenor Hermann Winkelmann in the title rôle and Engelbert Humperdinck assisting in the production
• August 8–20 – Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture is premièred in a tent near the unfinished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow under the baton of Ippolit Al'tani
• Gustav Mahler is employed at Olomouc
• Richard Strauss enters Munich University

Published popular music

• "Baa! Baa! Baa!"
• "The Band Quartette" by Charles A. White
• "Bow, Bow, Ye Lower Middle Classes"
• "Goodbye, My Lover, Goodbye"
• "In My Fust 'Usband's Time"
• "The Old Miser" by Charles A. White
• Les Patineurs (waltz)
• "Sweet Violets" by Joseph Emmet
• "Up Went The Price"
• From the score of Iolanthe:
• *"I'm Very Much Pained"
• *"Loudly Let The Trumpets Bray"
• *"The Nightmare Song"
• *"None Shall Part Us"
• *"Oh, Foolish Fay"
• *"Tho' P'raps I May Incur Your Blame"
• *"Though The Views Of The House Have Diverged"
• *"Tripping Hither, Tripping Thither"
• *"Welcome To Our Hearts Again"
• *"When All Night Long A Chap Remains"
• *"When Britain Really Ruled The Waves"
• *"When I Went To The Bar"

Classical music

• Alexander Glazunov – String Quartet No. 1
• Charles Gounod – The Redemption
• Hans Huber – Symphony no. 1 "Wilhelm Tell"
• Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov – Yar-khmel
• Camille Saint-Saëns – Deux chœurs, for mixed chorus with piano ad libitum
• Pablo de Sarasate – Spanish Dances for violin and piano, Book IV
• Bedřich Smetana – String Quartet no. 2
• Johann Strauss – Voices of Spring
• Sergey Taneyev – Overture on a Russian Theme

Opera

• Friedrich Lux – Der Schmied von Ruhla, Stadtheater, Mainz, 28 March
• Adolf Neuendorff – Don Quixote
• Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov – The Snow Maiden, Mariinsky Theatre, Saint Petersburg, 29 January 1882
• Camille Saint-Saëns – Henry VIII
• Richard Wagner – Parsifal, Bayreuth Festspielhaus, 26 July

Musical theater

• Iolanthe ; London production opened at the Savoy Theatre on November 25 and ran for 398 performances
• Iolanthe, Broadway production opened at the Standard Theatre on December 1The Queen's Lace Handkerchief, Broadway production opened at the Casino Theatre on October 21 and ran for 571 performances
• The Smugglers (musical), Broadway production

Births

• January 15 – Henry Burr, popular tenor, prolific early recording artist
• February 11
• *Gheorghe Cucu composer
• *Joe Jordan, musician and composer
• February 17 – Kurt Schindler, composer
• February 28 – Geraldine Farrar, operatic soprano
• March 5 – Pauline Donalda, operatic soprano
• March 18 – Gian Francesco Malipiero, composer and musicologist
• March 24 – Gino Marinuzzi, conductor and composer
• April 4 – Mary Howe, composer and pianist
• April 17 – Artur Schnabel, pianist
• April 18 – Leopold Stokowski, conductor
• April 23 – Albert Coates, conductor and composer
• April 24 – Albert Valsien, conductor and composer
• May 6 – Georgi Atanasov, composer
• May 11 – Joseph Marx, composer and critic
• May 12 – Kyrylo Stetsenko, conductor, composer, critic and teacher
• June 4 – Erwin Lendvai, composer and choral conductor
• June 17 – Igor Stravinsky, composer
• July 8 – Percy Grainger, composer
• July 28 – Pavel Lamm, musicologist
• August 13 – Georges Jean-Aubry, lyricist
• August 15 – Marion Bauer, composer
• August 18 – Marcel Samuel-Rousseau, composer, organist and opera director
• September 6 – John Powell, composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist
• October 6 – Karol Szymanowski, pianist and composer
• November 3 – G. H. Elliott, blackface music hall singer
• November 10 – Rudi Gfaller, Austrian operetta singer and composer
• November 26 –Tarquinia Tarquini, Italian soprano
• December 8 – Manuel María Ponce, composer and music teacher
• December 9 – Joaquín Turina, composer
• December 16 – Zoltán Kodály, composer

Deaths

• February 3 – Guglielmo Quarenghi, composer
• February 12 – Madame Céleste, dancer
• February 16 – Julián Arcas, guitarist and composer
• February 20 – Louis Adolphe le Doulcet, comte de Pontécoulant, soldier and musicologist
• February 22 – Harriett Everard, singer and actress
• February 27 – Alfred Jaëll, pianist
• March 1 – Theodor Kullak, pianist and composer
• March 16 – Mariia Surovshchikova-Petipa, ballerina
• April 3 – Friedrich Wilhelm Kücken, composer and conductor
• June 24 – Joachim Raff, composer
• June 28 – James Turle, organist and composer
• July – John Zundel, organist, composer and arranger
• July 4 – Joseph Brackett, songwriter
• July 12 – Alfred Pease, composer and pianist
• August 28 - Fred Godfrey, bandmaster and music arranger
• September 16 – Theodore Eisfeld, conductor
• October 3 – Adelaide Phillips, contralto singer
• October 22 – Oskar Ahnfelt, composer of hymn-tunes
• October 27 – Adolphe Gutmann, composer
• October 29 – Gustav Nottebohm, composer and music editor
• November 2 – Cenobio Paniagua, composer
• November 18 – Aleksander Mirecki, marischal and violinist
• November 20 – Kéler Béla, composer and conductor
• December 29 – Josabeth Sjöberg, painter and music teacher
• date unknown
• *Edward Mack, composer
• *Konstantin Vilboa, composer