1855 in music

List of years in music (table)
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Events

• February 17 – Franz Liszt gives the first performance of his Piano Concerto No. 1, conducted by Hector Berlioz.
• March–June – Richard Wagner stays in London to conduct a series of concerts.
• June 13 - Twentieth opera of Giuseppe Verdi "Les vêpres siciliennes" (The Sicilian Vespers) is premiered in Paris. ^[1]
• July 5 – Jacques Offenbach inaugurates performances of operettas as director of his own theater, the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens.
• Late autumn – Mily Balakirev meets Mikhail Glinka in Saint Petersburg. Their friendship cements the former's ambition to foster Russian nationalist music.
• November 27 – Piano Trio No. 1 of Brahms is given its first public performance at Dodsworth's Hall in Manhattan on Broadway at 11th Street. It is the earliest performance of Brahms' music in the United States
• December 3 – The Piano Trio in G minor by Bedřich Smetana is given its first public performance in Prague.
• Tchaikovsky takes private music lessons with Rudolph Kündinger, who tells Tchaikovsky's father that he saw nothing to suggest a future composer.

Bands formed

• Black Dyke Mills Band re-formed after failure of its immediate predecessor, the Queenshead Band in Queensbury, West Yorkshire, England.

Popular music

• Stephen Foster – "Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming"
• George Martin Lane – "The Lone Fish Ball"
• Caroline Norton – "Juanita"
• words Septimus Winner (as "Alice Hawthorne") music Richard Milburn – "Listen to the Mocking Bird"

Classical music

• Georges Bizet – Symphony in C
• Franz Berwald – Piano Concerto in D
• Eduard Franck – String Quartet in F minor op. 49 ()
• Charles Gounod – Symphony No. 1 in D
• Stephen Heller
  • 2 Tarantelles, Op.85
  • Im Walde, Op.86
• Friedrich Hermann – Capriccio No.1 for 3 Violins, Op.2
• Franz Liszt
  • Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H
  • Les préludes, S.97
  • Prometheus, S.99
  • 3 Lieder aus Schillers "Wilhelm Tell", S.292
  • Wie singt die Lerche schön, S.312
• Anton Rubinstein – Quintet for Piano and Winds Op. 55 (probably from this year)
• Camille Saint-Saëns
  • Six Bagatelles for piano, Op. 3
  • Quintet for Piano and Strings, Op. 14
• Bedřich Smetana – Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 15
• Louis Spohr – 6 Gesänge, Op.154

Opera

• George Frederick Bristow – Rip van Winkle
• Fromental Halévy – L'inconsolable
• Jacques Offenbach – one-act operettas
  • Ba-ta-clan
  • Les deux aveugles
• Giuseppe Verdi – Les vêpres siciliennes

Musical theatre

• Po-ca-hon-tas, or The Gentle Savage (Music: James Gaspard Maeder, Book and Lyrics: John Brougham) Broadway production opened Wallack's Lyceum Theatre on December 24 and transferred to the Bowery Theatre on June 28, 1856. Featuring John Brougham as John Smith.

Births

• January 20 – Ernest Chausson, composer (d. 1899)
• February 15 – Gustav Hollaender, composer (died 1915)
• February 18 – Vera Timanova, Russian pianist
• March 12 – Eduard Birnbaum, cantor (died 1920)
• April 18 – Josef Gruber, composer (died 1933)
• May 2 – Theodore Moses Tobani, composer (died 1933)
• May 9 – Julius Röntgen, composer (d. 1932)
• May 10 – Carl Kiefert, conductor (died 1937)
• May 11 – Anatoly Lyadov, conductor, composer and music teacher (d. 1914)
• June 5 – Hanuš Wihan, cellist (died 1920)
• June 17 – Fritz Kauffmann, composer (died 1934)
• July 25 – Edward Solomon, pianist, conductor and composer (died 1895)
• August 2 – Cornélie van Zanten, opera singer and teacher (d. 1946)
• August 27 – Domenico Salvatori, castrato singer (d. 1909)
• September 6 – Ferdinand Hummel, composer (died 1928)
• September 9 – Michele Esposito, pianist and composer (d. 1929)
• October 16 – William Barclay Squire, musicologist (died 1927)
• October 30 – Károly Aggházy, composer (died 1918)
• November 1 – Guido Adler, musicologist (died 1941)
• November 6 – Paul Kalisch, singer (d. 1946)
• December 7 – Gunhild Rosén, ballerina
• December 23 – Alan Gray, composer (died 1935)
• December 26 – Arnold Mendelssohn, composer (died 1933)

Deaths

• January 25 – Gaetano Rossi, librettist (b. 1774)
• February 1 – Claus Harms, researcher of Lutheran hymns (b. 1778)
• February 27 – Louis Lambillotte, composer and music palaeographer (b. 1796)
• March 17 – Ramon Carnicer, conductor and composer (b. 1789)
• April 12 – Pedro Albéniz, pianist and composer (b. 1795)
• April 30 – Henry Rowley Bishop, composer (b. 1786)
• July 19 – Karl Keller, composer and flautist (b. 1784)
• September 27 – August Lanner, conductor and composer (b. 1835)
• November 9 – Domenico Cosselli, operatic bass-baritone (b. 1801)
• November 21 – Olea Crøger, collector of Norwegian folk tunes (b. 1801)
• November 25 – Thomas Commuck, composer (born 1804)
• December 2 – Frédéric Bérat, songwriter and composer (b. 1801)
• Marie Antoinette Petersén, singer and member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music (b. 1771)

References

1. Hibberd, Sarah. The Creation of Les Vêpres siciliennes, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Program book for 2013 production. p. 11-17.