The year 1661 in music involved some significant events.

Events

• April 19 – Maria Cattarina Calegari takes her final vows and becomes a nun at the Benedictine Convent of Santa Margherita in Milan.
• November 4 – Samuel Pepys' diary records a visit to the opera.
• King Louis XIV of France creates the Académie Royale de Danse.
• Jean-Baptiste Lully becomes a French subject.
• First public opera performances in Antwerp, on the stage of the Schouwburgh van de Oude Voetboog.

Classical music

• Thomas Gobert – Pseaume XVIII
• Matthew Locke – Flatt Consort
• Heinrich Schütz – Becker Psalter (revised and enlarged edition)
• Gaspar de Verlit – Missae et motettae nec non quator antiphonae B. Mariae Virginis, vol. 1

Opera

• Antonio Bertali – Il Ciro crescente
• Jacopo Melani – Ercole in Tebe
• Antonio Sartorio – Gl'amori infruttuosi di Pirro

Births

• February – Henri Desmarets, composer (died 1741)
• February 5 – Barbara Kluntz, composer (died 1730)
• June 6 – Giacomo Antonio Perti, composer (died 1756)
• September 2 – Georg Böhm, organist and composer (died 1733)
• November 1 – Florent Carton (Dancourt), librettist (died 1725)
• date unknown – Francesco Gasparini, composer (died 1727)

Deaths

• May 4 – Jean de Cambefort, composer (born 1605)
• May 9 – Alberich Mazak, composer (born 1609)
• June 3 – Gottfried Scheidt, organist and composer (born 1593)
• August 29 – Louis Couperin, harpsichordist and composer (born c.1626)
• October – Germain Pinel, harpsichordist and composer (born c. 1600)
• November 16 – João Lourenço Rebelo, composer (born 1610)
• December 29 – Antoine Girard, librettist (born 1594)