1855 in music
Encyclopedia
Events
- Franz LisztFranz LisztFranz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
gives the first performance of his Piano Concerto No. 1Piano Concerto No. 1 (Liszt)Franz Liszt composed his Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, S.124 over a 26-year period; the main themes date from 1830, while the final version dates 1849. The concerto consists of four movements, which are performed without breaks in between, and lasts approximately 20 minutes...
, conducted by Hector BerliozHector BerliozHector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
. - Jacques OffenbachJacques OffenbachJacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
becomes director of his own opera house, Les Bouffes-Parisiennes - Richard WagnerRichard WagnerWilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
conducts a series of concerts in London.
Popular music
- Stephen FosterStephen FosterStephen Collins Foster , known as the "father of American music", was the pre-eminent songwriter in the United States of the 19th century...
- "Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming" - George Martin LaneGeorge Martin LaneGeorge Martin Lane , American scholar, was born at Charlestown, Massachusetts.He graduated in 1846 at Harvard, and in 1847-1851 studied at the universities of Berlin, Bonn, Heidelberg and Göttingen...
- "The Lone Fish Ball" - Mrs. Norton - "Juanita"Juanita (song)"Juanita" is a love song variously subtitled "A Spanish Ballad", "A Song of Spain", etc. "Juanita" was first published in 1855 attributed to Mrs. Norton, with music arranged by T.G May...
Classical music
- Georges BizetGeorges BizetGeorges Bizet formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.During a...
- Symphony in CSymphony in C (Bizet)The Symphony in C is an early work by the French composer Georges Bizet. According to Grove's Dictionary, the symphony "reveals an extraordinarily accomplished talent for an 17-year-old student, in melodic invention, thematic handling and orchestration." Bizet started work on the symphony on 29... - Franz BerwaldFranz BerwaldFranz Adolf Berwald was a Swedish Romantic composer who was generally ignored during his lifetime. He made his living as an orthopedic surgeon and later as the manager of a saw mill and glass factory....
- Piano Concerto in D - Eduard FranckEduard FranckEduard Franck was born in Breslau, the capital of the Prussian province of Silesia. He was the fourth child of a wealthy and cultivated banker who exposed his children to the best and brightest that Germany had to offer. Frequenters to the Franck home included such luminaries as Heine, Humboldt,...
- String Quartet in F minor op. 49 (http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2003/Nov03/Franck_quartet_Quintet.htm) - Charles GounodCharles GounodCharles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...
- Symphony No. 1 in D - Franz LisztFranz LisztFranz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
- Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H - Anton RubinsteinAnton RubinsteinAnton Grigorevich Rubinstein was a Russian-Jewish pianist, composer and conductor. As a pianist he was regarded as a rival of Franz Liszt, and he ranks amongst the great keyboard virtuosos...
- Quintet for Piano and Winds op. 55 (probably from this year) - Camille Saint-SaënsCamille Saint-SaënsCharles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
- Quintet for Piano and Strings op. 14
Opera
- George Frederick BristowGeorge Frederick BristowGeorge Frederick Bristow was an American composer. He advocated American classical music, rather than favoring European pieces. He was famously involved in a related controversy involving William Henry Fry and the New York Philharmonic Society.-Musical career:Bristow was born into a musical...
- Rip van Winkle - Jacques-François-Fromental-Elie HalévyFromental HalévyJacques-François-Fromental-Élie Halévy, usually known as Fromental Halévy , was a French composer. He is known today largely for his opera La Juive.-Early career:...
- L'inconsolable - Giuseppe VerdiGiuseppe VerdiGiuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
- Les Vêpres Siciliennes - Jacques OffenbachJacques OffenbachJacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
Les deux aveuglesLes deux aveuglesLes deux aveugles is a one-act bouffonerie musicale, in the style of an operetta, by Jacques Offenbach to a French libretto by Jules Moinaux...
, a one-act bouffonerie musicale
Musical theatre
- Po-Ca-Hon-Tas (Music: James Gaspard Maeder, Book and Lyrics: John BroughamJohn BroughamJohn Brougham was an Irish-American actor and dramatist.-Biography:He was born at Dublin. His father was an amateur painter, and died young. His mother was the daughter of a Huguenot, whom political adversity had forced into exile. John was the eldest of three children...
) Broadway production opened Wallack's Lyceum Theatre on December 24 and transferred to the Bowery TheatreBowery TheatreThe Bowery Theatre was a playhouse in the Bowery neighborhood of New York City. Although it was founded by rich families to compete with the upscale Park Theatre, the Bowery saw its most successful period under the populist, pro-American management of Thomas Hamblin in the 1830s and 1840s...
on June 28, 1856. Featuring John Brougham as John Smith.
Births
- January 20 - Ernest ChaussonErnest ChaussonAmédée-Ernest Chausson was a French romantic composer who died just as his career was beginning to flourish.-Life:Ernest Chausson was born in Paris into a prosperous bourgeois family...
, composer (d. 1899) - February 18 - Vera TimanovaVera TimanovaVera Viktorovna Timanova was a Russian pianist.Vera Timanova was born into a well-to-do family in Ufa, Bashkortostan, Russia, where she spent her childhood. She showed musical aptitude at an early age, and at age six began taking piano instruction from local teachers, with her first public...
, Russian pianist - May 9 - Julius RöntgenJulius RöntgenJulius Engelbert Röntgen was a German-Dutch composer of classical music.-Life:Julius Röntgen was born in Leipzig, Germany, to a family of musicians. His father, Engelbert Röntgen, was first violinist in the Gewandhaus orchestra in Leipzig; his mother, Pauline Klengel, was a pianist, the aunt of...
, composer (d. 1932) - May 11 - Anatoly Lyadov, conductor, composer and music teacher (d. 1914)
- July 25 - Edward SolomonEdward SolomonEdward Solomon was a prolific English composer, as well as a conductor, orchestrator and pianist. Though he died before his fortieth birthday, he wrote dozens of works produced for the stage, including several for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, such as The Nautch Girl, among others.-Early...
, pianist, conductor and composer (died 1895) - August 2 - Cornélie van ZantenCornélie van ZantenWijntje Cornelia van Zanten was a Dutch opera singer, singing teacher and author.Van Zanten, who sang both mezzosoprano and alto, also wrote her name as Cornélie or Cornelie and was known among friends as Corry or Kee.She studied at the conservatory of Cologne, among others, and then continued...
, opera singer and teacher (d. 1946) - August 27 - Domenico SalvatoriDomenico SalvatoriDomenico Salvatori along with Alessandro Moreschi, Domenico Mustafà and Giovanni Cesari, was one of the famous castrati singers of the late 19th century....
, castrato singer (d. 1909) - September 9 - Michele EspositoMichele EspositoMichele Esposito was an Italian-born musical composer and pianist who lived most of his professional life in Dublin, Ireland.- Training :Esposito was born at Castellamare di Stabia, near Sorrento...
, pianist and composer (d. 1929) - November 6 - Paul KalischPaul KalischPaul Kalisch was a German opera singer. He was the son of David Kalisch, a Jewish Christian writer, founder of the Kladderadatsch....
, singer (d. 1946) - December 7 - Gunhild RosénGunhild RosénGunhild Rosén , was a Swedish ballerina, choreographer and a ballet master of the Royal Swedish Ballet in Stockholm.Gunhild Rosén was a student of Anders Selinder...
, ballerina
Deaths
- January 25 - Gaetano RossiGaetano RossiGaetano Rossi was an Italian writer who wrote opera libretti for several composers including Mayr, Rossini, Donizetti, Mercadante, Pacini, and Meyerbeer.-Biography:...
, librettist (b. 1774) - February 1 - Claus HarmsClaus HarmsClaus Harms was a German clergyman and theologian.Harms was born at Fahrstedt in Schleswig-Holstein, and in his youth worked in his father's mill...
, researcher of Lutheran hymns (b. 1778) - February 27 - Louis LambillotteLouis LambillotteLouis Lambillotte was a Belgian Jesuit, composer and palaeographer of Church music, associated with the restoration of Gregorian music, which he inaugurated and promoted by his scientific researches and publications.-Early life:At the age of fifteen, he became organist in Charleroi; later he went...
, composer and music palaeographer (b. 1796) - March 17 - Ramon CarnicerRamón CarnicerRamon Carnicer i Batlle was a Catalan composer and opera conductor, today best known for composing the National Anthem of Chile....
, conductor and composer (b. 1789) - April 12 - Pedro AlbénizPedro AlbénizPedro Albéniz y Basanta was a Spanish pianist and composer. He was unrelated to Isaac Albéniz.Albéniz was born Logroño, La Rioja. He began his studies with his father Mateo Albéniz, a notable church musician in Spain...
, pianist and composer (b. 1795) - September 27 - August LannerAugust LannerAugustin Lanner , sometimes known as August Lanner, was an Austrian composer, the son of the better-known Josef Lanner. He was first educated at the St. Anna-Schule but received no music instruction at that time...
, conductor and composer (b. 1835) - November 9 - Domenico CosselliDomenico CosselliDomenico Cosselli was an Italian operatic bass-baritone, particularly associated with Rossini operas.He began his vocal studies in his native city in 1814 and made his stage debut there in 1821...
, operatic bass-baritone (b. 1801) - December 2 - Frédéric BératFrédéric BératFrédéric Bérat was a French composer and songwriter. He is the writer of Ma Normandie which is used as the National Anthem of Jersey, and sometimes as the unofficial Norman anthem.-External links:...
, songwriter and composer (b. 1801) - date unknown - Olea CrøgerOlea CrøgerOlea Crøger , the daughter of a pastor from Heddal, Norway, collected and published old folk tunes. She started this work before the more famous work of Jørgen Moe and Magnus Brostrup Landstad. Over her life, she collected and published volumes of material which contributed significantly to the...
, collector of Norwegian folk tunes (b. 1801)