1853 in music

Events

• March 5 – The American-German piano company Steinway & Sons is founded by Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg.
• October – Louis Niedermeyer reorganizes and re-opens the choristers' school known as the École Choron, which becomes the École Niedermeyer de Paris.
• October 1 – The piano manufacturer C. Bechstein Pianofortefabrik is founded by Carl Bechstein in Berlin.
• October 22 – The overture to Tannhäuser is performed in Boston Music Hall by the Germania Musical Society conducted by Carl Bergmann. It is the first American performance.
• November 1 – Richard Wagner begins composing the music for The Ring of the Nibelung .
• Louis Moreau Gottschalk returns to the United States after eleven years in Europe.
• Brahms meets Joseph Joachim and Robert and Clara Schumann.
• Julius Blüthner founds Blüthner (piano manufacturer) in Leipzig, Germany.

Published popular music

• Danmarks gamle Folkeviser collected by Svend Grundtvig
• "Farewell My Lilly Dear" by Stephen Foster
• "My Cottage Home" w.m. Alice Hawthorne
• "My Old Kentucky Home" by Stephen Foster
• " P'tit quinquin " (in Picard) by Alexandre Desrousseaux
• "The Yellow Rose of Texas"

Classical music

• Franz Berwald
  • Piano Trio No. 4 in C major
  • Piano Quintet No. 1 in C minor
• Johannes Brahms – Piano Sonata No. 1, Piano Sonata No. 3
• Ida Henriette da Fonseca
  • Der Abschied
  • Byrons Statue
  • Die Erwartung
  • Granen ved Lougen
  • Regnbuen
  • Wechsellied zum Tanze
  • Zum neuen Jahr
• William Henry Fry – Santa Claus, Christmas Symphony
• Louis Moreau Gottschalk – The Banjo, Op. 15
• Charles Gounod – Méditation sur le Premier Prélude de Piano de S. Bach, later known as Ave Maria (Bach/Gounod)
• Franz Liszt
  • Piano Sonata in B minor
  • Hungarian Rhapsodies 1–15
  • Ballade No. 2
• Camille Saint-Saëns
  • Piano Quartet in E major
  • Symphony No. 1 in E♭ major
• Robert Schumann - Gesänge der Frühe
• Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Albert Dietrich – F-A-E Sonata
• Henryk Wieniawski – Violin Concerto No. 1

Opera

• Victor Massé – Les noces de Jeannette
• Karel Miry – Anne Mie (opera in 1 act, premiered on October 9 in Antwerp)
• Giuseppe Verdi
  • Il trovatore (premiered on January 19 at Teatro Apollo in Rome)
  • La traviata (premiered on March 6 at La Fenice in Venice)

Births

• May 17 – Carolina Östberg, opera singer (d. 1929)
• July 24 – Alessandro Parisotti, composer and music editor (d. 1913)
• November 23 – Giuseppina Bozzachi, ballerina (d. 1870)
• December 22 – Teresa Carreño, pianist, singer, conductor and composer (d. 1917)
• December 30 – André Messager, composer (d. 1929)
• date unknown
  • Alfonso Rendano, pianist (d. 1931)
  • Maria Westberg, ballerina (d. 1893)

Deaths

• January 16 – Matteo Carcassi, guitarist and composer (b. 1792)
• March 15 – Giovanni Ricordi, violinist (b. 1785)
• October 3 – George Onslow, composer (b. 1784)
• October 29 – Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmermann, pianist, composer and music teacher (b. 1785)
• October 30 – Pietro Raimondi, composer (b. 1786)
• December 5
  • Johann Peter Heuschkel, oboist, organist and composer (b. 1773)
  • Jeanette Wässelius, operatic soprano
• date unknown – James Hill, folk musician (b. c. 1811)