Events

February 28 – Fire breaks out during a performance and destroys the Großherzoglichen Hoftheater in Baden. Most of the audience perishes because the theatre doors cannot be opened from the inside.
March 3 – I Lombardi alla prima crociata is performed at Palmo's Opera House in New York City, the first presentation of a Verdi opera in the United States.
March 14 – Verdi's Macbeth is premiėred at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence, Italy.
Franz Liszt gives up performing in public.
Vladimir Stasov publishes a monograph on Mikhail Glinka's use of folk motifs in his music.

Popular music

"Cantique de Noël" ("O Holy Night") w. (Fr) Placide Cappeau (Eng) John Sullivan Dwight m. Adolphe Adam
"Dinah Dear" by Philip Klitz
"Miss Ginger" by Philip Klitz
"Roll On Silver Moon" by Joseph W. Turner

Francisco Asenjo Barbieri – Il Buontempone
Giovanni Bottesini – Cristoforo Colombo
Friedrich von Flotow – Martha
Ivar Hallstrom – Hvita frun på Drottningholm (libretto by Frans Hedberg)
Karel Miry – Brigitta (opera in 3 acts, libretto by Hippoliet van Peene, premiered on June 27 in Ghent)
Giuseppe Verdi – Macbeth
William Vincent Wallace – Matilda of Hungary

January 1 – Rudolf Tillmetz, flute virtuoso, music teacher and composer (d. 1915)
February 15 – Robert Fuchs, composer and music teacher (d. 1927)
March 2 – Richard Temple, singer, actor and theatre director (d. 1912)
March 9 – Axel Grandjean, conductor and composer (d. 1932)
June 28 – Sveinbjörn Sveinbjörnsson, composer (d. 1927)
July 12 – Karl Heinrich Barth, pianist and music teacher (d. 1922)
July 21 – Víctor Mirecki Larramat, cellist and music teacher (d. 1921)
October 21 – Giuseppe Giacosa, librettist for some of Puccini's operas (d. 1906)
November 1 – Emma Albani, soprano (d. 1930)
November 30 – August Klughardt, conductor and composer (d. 1902)
December 1 – Agathe Backer Grøndahl, pianist and composer (d. 1907)
December 9 – George Grossmith, comic writer and performer (d. 1912)
December 18 – Augusta Holmès, composer (d. 1903)
December 28 – James Frederick Swift, organist and composer (d. 1931)
date unknown – Emma Fursch-Madi, operatic soprano (d. 1894)