1674 in music

The year 1674 in music involved some significant events.

Events

 * April – Thomas Shadwell produces a revision of the Dryden/Davenant version of Shakespeare's The Tempest. Furnished with music by John Bannister, Giovanni Battista Draghi, Pelham Humfrey, Pietro Reggio, and Matthew Locke, it became a great popular success.
 * September 29 – Nicholas Staggins is appointed Master of the Kings Music
 * Johann Aegidius Bach is appointed organist at the Kaufmannskirche in Erfurt
 * John Blow is appointed Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal
 * Johannes Voorhout paints the only known portrait of Dieterich Buxtehude.
 * Giovanni Paolo Colonna becomes chapelmaster at Bologna.
 * Ariane, ou Le Mariage de Bacchus, by Robert Cambert, is one of the first French operas to be sung in Britain.

Classical music

 * Heinrich Biber
 * Missa Christi resurgentis à 20
 * Mystery (Rosary) Sonatas
 * Dieterich Buxtehude
 * Fried- und Freudenreiche Hinfarth, published in Lübeck (consisting of Mit Fried und Freud, composed 1671, and Klag-Lied)
 * Klag-Lied: Muß der Tod denn auch entbinden, chorale settings
 * Drei schöne Dinge sind, BuxWV 19
 * Cristofaro Caresana
 * La caccia del toro
 * La Veglia
 * Marc-Antoine Charpentier
 * Laudate Dominum, H.159
 * Domine Dominus noster, H.163
 * Pour Ste. Anne, H.315
 * Francesco Corbetta – La Guitarre Royalle
 * Carolus Hacquart – Cantiones sacrae, Op.1
 * Bishop Thomas Ken – "Morning Hymn" (based upon Psalm 108.2)
 * Maria Francesca Nascimbeni – Mottetto Sitientes venite
 * Pavel Josef Vejvanovský – Sonata Natalis (composed for the Christmas season)
 * Gaspar Sanz – Instrucción de Música

Opera

 * Jean-Baptiste Lully – Alceste

Births

 * January 9 – Reinhard Keiser, opera composer (died 1739)
 * July 11 or July 16 – Isaac Watts, the "father of English hymnody" (died 1748)
 * September 29 – Jacques-Martin Hotteterre, composer (died 1763)
 * November 23 – Pierre Dumage, organist and composer (died 1751)
 * date unknown – Ambrose Philips, poet and lyricist (died 1749)
 * probable – Jeremiah Clarke, composer (suicide 1707)

Deaths

 * January 12 – Giacomo Carissimi, composer (born 1605)
 * February 22 – John Wilson, theatre composer (born 1595)
 * February 24 – Matthias Weckmann, composer (born c.1616)
 * July 14 – Pelham Humfrey, English composer and singer (born 1647)
 * October 15 – Robert Herrick, poet and lyricist (born 1591)
 * October 27 – Hallgrímur Pétursson, hymnist (born 1614)
 * November 8 – John Milton, poet and lyricist (born 1608)
 * date unknown
 * Francisco Lopez Capillas, composer and chapelmaster of Mexico Cathedral (born 1608)