1854 in music

List of years in music (table)
... 1844 1845 1846 1847 1848 1849 1850 ... 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 ... 1858 1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 ...
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Events

• February 27 – Robert Schumann unsuccessfully attempts suicide by throwing himself from a bridge into the River Rhine.
• June 24 - Franz Liszt premieres Franz Schubert's opera Alfonso und Estrella in Weimar, thirty-two years after it was composed.
• Anton Rubinstein begins a four year concert tour of Europe, establishing his reputation as the leading piano virtuoso of his generation.
• Richard Wagner completes Das Rheingold.

Published popular music

• "Hard Times Come Again No More" w.m. Stephen Collins Foster
• "(I Dream of) Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair" w.m. Stephen Collins Foster
• "Maggie by My Side" Stephen Collins Foster
• "Old Dog Tray" Stephen Collins Foster
• "What Is Home Without A Mother" w.m. Septimus Winner

Classical music

• Hector Berlioz – L'enfance du Christ
• Charles Gounod – Chant de paix
• Franz Liszt – Les préludes
• Henri Wieniawski – Le carnaval russe for Violin and Piano
• Johannes Brahms
  • Op.8 Piano Trio No. 1 (revised in 1889)
  • Op. 9, Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann in F-sharp minor, for piano. The theme is from Op. 99, Bunte Blätter.
  • Op. 10 Ballades
  • Opus 21 No.2 Fourteen Variations on a Hungarian Melody, in D major

Opera

• Karel Miry – La Lanterne magique (opera in 3 acts, libretto by Hippoliet van Peene, premiered on March 10 in Ghent)

Births

• April 13 – António D'Andrade, opera singer (d. 1942)
• May 6 – Laura Joyce Bell, contralto singer and actress (d. 1904)
• July 3 – Leoš Janáček, composer (d. 1928)
• July 14 – Alexander Kopylov, violinist and composer (d. 1911)
• August 24 – Alfred Dudley Turner, composer (some sources have b.1853) (d.1888)
• September 1 – Engelbert Humperdinck, composer (d. 1921)
• November 6 – John Philip Sousa, composer (d. 1932)
• November 14 – Dina Edling, opera singer (d. 1935)

Deaths

• January 12 – Philip Klitz, composer (born 1805)
• March 3 – Giovanni Battista Rubini, operatic tenor (born 1794)
• March 26 – Emilie Hammarskjöld, pianist, singer and composer (born 1821)
• April 18 – Józef Elsner, composer and teacher (born 1769)
• May 1 – Jean Coralli, dancer and choreographer (born 1779)
• May 31 – Vatroslav Lisinski, composer (born 1819)
• June 17 – Henriette Sontag, operatic soprano (born 1806) (cholera)
• July 14 – Louis-Pierre Norblin, cellist (born 1781)
• August 21 – August Ferdinand Anacker, composer (born 1790)
• October – Luigi Tarisio, violin dealer and collector (born c. 1790)
• November 2 – Anton Pann, poet, musicologist and composer (born c. 1790)
• November 17 – Alberich Zwyssig, composer of the Swiss national anthem (born 1808)