1839 in music

Events

• March 21 – Felix Mendelssohn conducts the first known performance of Franz Schubert's Great C Major Symphony
• November 17 – Giuseppe Verdi's first opera, Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio, opens at La Scala, Milan.

  Classical music

• Hector Berlioz – Romeo et Juliette
• Frédéric Chopin
• *Scherzo No.3, Op. 39
• *Mazurka in A minor, B.134
• *Piano Sonata No. 2 "Funeral March"
• Mikhail Glinka
• *La séparation
• *Polonaise
• *Valse-Fantasie
• Johann Nepomuk Hummel – 2 Preludes and Fugue for Organ
• Joseph Lanner – Amazonen-Galopp; Malapou Galop
• Franz Liszt
• *Valse mélancolique, S.210
• *Angiolin dal biondo crin, S.269
• *Fantaisie sur des motifs favoris de l'opéra 'La sonnambula', S.393
• Felix Mendelssohn
• *6 Gesänge, Op. 47
• *Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 49
• *"Liebe und Wein"
• Robert Schumann:
• *Arabesque in C, Op. 18
• *Blumenstück in D, Op. 19
• *Humoreske in B, Op. 20
• *4 Nachtstücke, Op. 23
• *Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op. 26
• *3 Romances, Op. 28
• Louis Spohr – Concerto for Violin no 14 in A minor, Op. 110 "Sonst und Jetzt"

  Opera

• Alexander Dargomyzhsky – Esmeralda
• Gaetano Donizetti
• *L'ange de Nisida
• *Il duca d'Alba
• Giuseppe Lillo – Il conte di Chalais
• Giuseppe Verdi – Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio

  Published popular music

• "Kathleen Mavourneen" w. Annie Barry Crawford m. Frederick William Nicholls Crouch

  Births

• January 1 – James Ryder Randall, popular songwriter
• January 9 – John Knowles Paine, composer and musicologist
• February 7 – Elie Miriam Delaborde, editor and pianist
• April 18 – Lotten Edholm, composer
• March 2 – Victoria Bundsen, alto
• March 10 – Dudley Buck, American composer and organist
• March 17 – Josef Rheinberger, composer
• March 19 – Gustav Roguski, composer and teacher of Mieczysław Karłowicz
• March 21 – Modest Mussorgsky, composer
• April 12 – Victorin de Joncières, composer and music critic
• May 19 – Alice Mary Smith, composer
• July 14 – Sydney Smith, English composer and pianist
• August 24 – Eduard Nápravník, composer
• November 24 – James Warren York, businessman, musical instrument maker

  Deaths

• February 16 – Ludwig Berger, pianist, composer and music teacher
• March 8 – Adolphe Nourrit, operatic tenor
• April 20 – Giuseppe Rossini, father of the composer Gioacchino Rossini
• May 3 – Ferdinando Paer, composer
• June 8 – Aloysia Weber, operatic soprano
• June 11 – Regina Strinasacchi, violinist
• June 14 – Nicolas Mori, violinist, conductor and music publisher
• June 15 – Hans Skramstad, pianist and composer
• July 10 – Fernando Sor, guitarist and composer
• September 21 – Gottfried Weber, music theorist
• December 7 – Jan August Vitásek, composer

  Awards

• Prix de Rome – Charles Gounod