1885 in music

Specific locations

• 1885 in Norwegian music

  Events

• October 25 – Johannes Brahms' Symphony No. 4 is premiered in Meiningen
• Tin Pan Alley group of popular songwriters and publishers forms in New York City

  Published popular music

• "American Patrol" m. F. W. Meacham
• "The Boy I Love is Up in the Gallery" w.m. George Ware
• "Dars a Lock on de Chicken Coop Door" by Sam Lucas
• "Funny Things They Do Upon The Sly" w. G. W. Hunter & John Cooke Jnr m. G. W. Hunter
• "Open Road" Johann Strauss II
• "Saffi's Aria" Johann Strauss II
• "Some Sweet Day" by Edward L. Park & William Howard Doane
• "This Is The House That Jerry Built" w. T. S. Lonsdale m. W. G. Eaton
• "What Cheer 'Ria" w. Will Herbert m. Bessie Bellwood
• From the score of The Mikado:
• *"A More Humane Mikado"
• *"The Flowers That Bloom In The Spring"
• *"There Is Beauty In The Bellow Of The Blast"
• *"Three Little Maids From School"
• *"A Wand'ring Minstrel I"

  Classical music

• Johannes Brahms – Symphony No. 4, Op. 98, in E minor
• Anton Bruckner – Symphony No. 7
• George Whitefield Chadwick – String Quartet No. 3 in D
• Antonín Dvořák – Symphony No. 7, Op. 70, in D minor
• Cesar Franck
• * Symphonic Variations for piano and orchestra
• * Danse lente for piano
• Alexander Glazunov – Stenka Razin
• Jean Sibelius – String Quartet in E-flat
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Manfred Symphony
• José Vianna da Motta – Piano Concerto in A
• Richard Strauss – Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major for horn and orchestra

  Opera

• Emmanuel Chabrier – Gwendoline
• Fromental Halévy, completed by Georges Bizet – Noé given its first performance at Karlsruhe.
• Jules Massenet – Le Cid
• André Messager
• *La fauvette du temple
• *La Béarnaise
• Emile Pessard – Tabarin premiered on January 12 at the Théâtre de l'Opéra, Paris
• Amilcare Ponchielli – Marion Delorme
• George Stephanescu – Scaiul barbatilor

  Musical theater

• Edward Jakobowski – Erminie London production
• William S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan – The Mikado London production
• Johann Strauss II – Der Zigeunerbaron Vienna production

  Births

• January 13 – James V. Monaco, Italian-born US composer
• January 27 – Jerome Kern, composer and songwriter
• February 9 – Alban Berg, composer
• February 12 – James Scott, ragtime composer
• February 16 – Will Fyffe, Scottish comedian and singer
• March 15 – Bertha Raffetto, American singer
• May 5 – Agustín Barrios, composer
• May 14 – Otto Klemperer, conductor and composer
• May 30 – Erna Ellmenreich, German operatic soprano
• July 12 – George Butterworth, composer
• July 17 – Benjamin Dale, composer
• August 9 – Pietro Frosini, accordionist
• October 15 – Therese Wiet, Austrian operetta singer
• October 21 – Egon Wellesz, Austrian composer
• October 25 – Sam M. Lewis, US lyricist
• December 19 – Joe "King" Oliver, jazz musician

  Deaths

• February 15 – Leopold Damrosch, conductor, 52
• March 31 – Franz Abt, composer, 65
• April 24 – Henry Augustus Rawes, hymn-writer, 58
• May – Adolphe Blanc, composer, 56
• May 1 – Henry Brinley Richards, composer, 67
• May 12 – Ferdinand Hiller, German composer, conductor and pianist, 73
• June 29 – Samuel C. Upham, lyricist, 66
• August 26 – August Gottfried Ritter, organist and composer, 74
• September 11 – Julius Zarebski, Polish pianist and composer, 31
• September 13 – Friedrich Kiel, German composer, 63
• October 21 – Michele Novaro, songwriter, 66