1789 in music

List of years in music (table)
... 1779 1780 1781 1782 1783 1784 1785 ... 1786 1787 1788 1789 1790 1791 1792 ... 1793 1794 1795 1796 1797 1798 1799 ...
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Events

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart travels to Berlin.
• Joseph Haydn meets Maria Anna von Genzinger.
• Adalbert Gyrowetz arrives in Paris.
• Luigi Cherubini becomes music director for the Théâtre Monsieur.
• Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach becomes Kapellmeister at Berlin.
• Anna Storace appears in a London production of Giovanni Paisiello's Il Barbiere di Siviglia.
• Mozart writes to his fellow Freemason and benefactor, Puchberg, saying that next time they meet, he will tell him about Antonio Salieri’s plots "which, however, have completely failed".
• Ignaz Joseph Pleyel becomes Kapellmeister of Strasbourg Cathedral in succession to Franz Xaver Richter.

Classical Music

• Ludwig van Beethoven – Two Preludes through all twelve major keys for piano, Op. 39
• William Crotch – The Captivity of Judah (oratorio)
• Joseph Haydn – Symphony No. 92 in G, "Oxford"
• Leopold Anton Kozeluch – Concerto for Clarinet no 2 in E flat major
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Clarinet Quintet in A

Opera

• Domenico Cimarosa – I Due Baroni
• André Grétry – Raoul Barbe-Bleue
• Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne - Nephté
• Giovanni Paisiello – Nina
• Johann Friedrich Reichardt – Brenno; Claudine von Villa Bella
• Antonio Salieri – Il Pastor fido; La Cifra; both with libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte
• Stephen Storace – The Haunted Tower

Births

• January 30 – George Augustus Kollmann, composer
• February 1 – Hippolyte André Jean Baptiste Chélard, composer (d. 1861)
• February 8 – Ludwig Wilhelm Maurer, composer (d. 1878)
• February 15 – Friedrich Fesca, composer (d. 1826)
• June 27 – Friedrich Silcher, composer (d. 1860)
• September 1 – Franz Anton Adam Stockhausen, composer
• October 18 – Giovanni Tadolini, composer
• October 24 – Ramon Carnicer y Batlle, composer (d. 1855)
• October 26 – Joseph Mayseder
• October 28 – Johann Schneider, composer
• November 13 – Martin de Ron, composer
• December 8 – John Fawcett, composer (d. 1867)
• December 14 – Maria Agata Szymanowska, composer (d. 1831)

Deaths

• January 1 – Christleib Siegmund Binder, composer
• January 2 – Franz Joseph Leonti Meyer von Schavensee, composer
• January 20 – Johann Christoph Oley, composer
• February 2 – Armand-Louis Couperin, organist and composer (b. 1727)
• May 10 – Guillaume Gommaire Kennis, composer
• June 7 – Václav Jan Kopřiva (b. 1708)
• June 14 – Johann Wilhelm Hertel, composer (b. 1727)
• July 4 – Cláudio Manuel da Costa, poer and conductor (b. 1729)
• July 15 – Jacques Duphly, composer (b. 1715)
• September 11 – Luka Sorkočević, composer (b. 1734) (suicide)
• September 12 – Franz Xaver Richter, composer (b. 1709)
• October 24 – Joaquin de Oxinaga, composer
• date unknown – Minette, actress, singer and dancer (b. 1767) (killed in Haitian race riot)