Events
- January 26 – Première of the opera Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss, in Dresden; the librettist is Hugo von Hofmannsthal and the director is Max Reinhardt.
- February 21 – Gustav Mahler, who has contracted bacterial endocarditis and is running a fever of 104 degrees, conducts his last concert, with the New York Philharmonic, of which he has been principal conductor since 1909.
- April 3 – Jean Sibelius conducts the world première of his Symphony No. 4 in Helsinki.
- April 8 – Gustav Mahler embarks from New York for France; he enters a clinic in Paris, where he dies just over a month later.
- May 19 – Maurice Ravel's opera L'heure espagnole is premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, in a double bill with Jules Massenet's 1907 opera Thérèse .
- May 24 – Edward Elgar conducts the première of his Symphony No. 2 in London.
- June 15 – Igor Stravinsky's ballet Petrushka is premiered in Paris; the lead dancer is Vaslav Nijinsky.
- July – Frank Bridge completes his orchestral suite The Sea , while staying at Eastbourne. [1]
- November 20 – Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde is premièred in Munich, after the composer's death, with his friend and former assistant Bruno Walter conducting at the request of Alma Mahler. [2]
- date unknown
- Aino Ackté and other prominent opera singers found the Domestic Opera in Finland.
- "Elsässisches Fahnenlied" is adopted as the anthem of the Republic of Alsace-Lorraine.
- 16-year-old Carl Orff publishes his first compositions.
- The Society of Women Musicians is co-founded by Marion Scott and others. [3]
