Events
- February 5 – Claudio Monteverdi's last opera L'incoronazione di Poppea is performed theatrically for the first time in more than 250 years, in Paris. [1]
- March 9 – The second performance of Francesco Balilla Pratella's Musica Futurista in Rome becomes the first of several pieces this year of classical music with an unruly audience response. [2] [3]
- March 31 – Skandalkonzert : A concert at the Musikverein in Vienna with Arnold Schoenberg conducting music by himself and his pupils Alban Berg and Anton Webern, particularly Berg's Altenberg Lieder , provokes fisticuffs and is abandoned. [4]
- April 1 – Manuel de Falla's opera La vida breve is given its world première in Nice.
- May 29 – The ballet The Rite of Spring , with music by Igor Stravinsky conducted by Pierre Monteux and choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky is premièred by Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, its modernism provoking one of the most famous classical music riots in history. [5] The audience includes Gabriele D'Annunzio, Coco Chanel, Marcel Duchamp, Harry Graf Kessler and Maurice Ravel. Police are called during the interval.
- September 5 – Sergei Prokofiev's performance of the first version of his Piano Concerto No. 2 at Pavlovsk, Saint Petersburg, is met with hisses and catcalls. [6]
- September 10 – Jean Sibelius's tone poem Luonnotar is premiered at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester Cathedral, England, with soprano Aino Ackté and orchestra conducted by Herbert Brewer. [7]
- October – Edison Diamond Disc Record introduced.
- The term "Jazz" first appears in print (in the San Francisco Bulletin).
- Louis Armstrong begins playing the cornet, in the band of the New Orleans Colored Waifs' Home.
- Lili Boulanger becomes the first woman to win the Musical Composition section of the Prix de Rome, with her cantata Faust et Hélène .
- The Aeolian Company introduces the Duo-Art piano technology.
- Edward Bairstow becomes organist of York Minster.
