1661 in music

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)