1866 in music

List of years in music (table)
... 1856 1857 1858 1859 1860 1861 1862 ... 1863 1864 1865 1866 1867 1868 1869 ... 1870 1871 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 ...
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Events

• January – Gabriel Fauré becomes organist at the Church of Saint-Sauveur, at Rennes in Brittany.^[1]
• March–December – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky writes his Symphony No. 1, Winter Daydreams.
• May 30 – Bedřich Smetana's opera The Bartered Bride (Prodana Nevesta) debuts at the Provisional Theatre (Prague).
• August – Sir William Sterndale Bennett becomes Principal of the Royal Academy of Music in London.^[2]
• August 4 – First performance of Gabriel Fauré's Cantique de Jean Racine.
• August 9 – Marie Trautmann marries fellow musician Alfred Jaëll.
• October 21 – Jacques Offenbach's operetta La vie parisienne debuts in Paris at the Théâtre du Palais Royale.
• November 17 – Ambroise Thomas's opera] Mignon debuts in Paris at the Opéra-Comique.
• Theodore Thomas conducts the New York Philharmonic in the American premiere of the Prelude to Act 1 of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.
• Georges Bizet completes the opera La jolie fille de Perth; it is premiered the following year.

Published popular music

• "Come Back To Erin" w.m. Claribel
• "We Parted By The River" w.m. William Shakespeare Hays
• "When You and I Were Young, Maggie" by James A. Butterfield & George Washington Johnson
• "Write Me A Letter Home"     w.m. Will S. Hays

Classical music

• Felix Draeseke – Fantasie on Themes from Boieldieus "Weisse Dame"
• Johann Gottfried Piefke – Königgrätzer Marsch
• Amilcare Ponchielli – Concerto for Trumpet in F major
• Arthur Sullivan - Irish Symphony

Opera

• Karel Miry
  • Maria van Boergondië (opera in 4 acts, libretto by N. Destanberg, premiered on August 28 in Ghent)
  • De Keizer bij de Boeren (opera in 1 act, libretto by N. Destanberg, premiered on October 29 in Ghent)
  • De occasie maakt den dief (opera in 1 act, libretto by N. Destanberg, premiered on December 24 in Ghent)
• Franz von Suppé – Leichte Kavallerie

Musical theater

• La Belle Hélène (Lyrics: Henri Meilhac & Ludovic Halévy Music: Jacques Offenbach) London production opened at the Adelphi Theatre on June 30
• The Black Crook – the first "book musical". Broadway production opened at Niblo's Garden on September 12 and ran for 474 performances

Births

• January 13 – Vasily Kalinnikov, composer (d. 1901)
• April 1 – Ferruccio Busoni, pianist, composer (d. 1924)
• April 13 – Carl Valentin Wunderle, violinist (d. 1944)
• May 17 – Erik Satie, composer (d. 1925)
• June 15 – Charles Wood, composer (d. 1926)
• June 29 – George Frederick Boyle, composer (d. 1948)
• July 13 – La Goulue, can-can dancer (d. 1929)
• July 23 – Francesco Cilea, composer (d. 1950)
• September 26 – George H. Clutsam, pianist, composer and writer (d. 1951)
• November 7 – Paul Lincke, composer (d. 1946)
• date unknown – Annibale Fagnola, violin maker (d. 1939)

Deaths

• January 25 – Minna Wagner, estranged wife of Richard Wagner, 56 (heart attack)
• February 6 – Anna Liszt, pianist and mother of Franz Liszt, 77
• March 20 – Rikard Nordraak, composer, 21 (tuberculosis)
• July 25 – Aloys Schmitt, composer, pianist and music teacher, 77
• October 2 – Adam Darr, guitarist, singer and composer, 55 (suicide by drowning)
• November 26 – Adrien-Francois Servais, cellist, 59
• November 29 – Sophie Löwe, operatic soprano, 51
• December 1 – Jules Demersseman, flautist and composer, 33 (tuberculosis)
• December 3 – Jan Kalivoda, violinist, conductor and composer, 65

References

1. Nectoux, Jean-Michel; Roger Nichols, trans. (1991). Gabriel Fauré – A Musical Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 12. ISBN 0-521-23524-3.
2. Zon, Bennett, ed. (1999). Nineteenth-Century British Music Studies 3. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 0754636143.