1774 in music

Events

 * Antonio Salieri is appointed court composer to the Emperor Joseph II.
 * Domenico Cimarosa is invited to Rome for the opera season.
 * Charles Burney writes A Plan for a Music School.
 * Pascal Taskin becomes keeper of the King's instruments.
 * Georg Joseph Vogler becomes a pupil of Giovanni Battista Martini at Bologna.

Opera

 * Pasquale Anfossi – Olimpiade
 * Christoph Willibald Gluck
 * Iphigenie en Aulide Wq.40
 * Orphée et Eurydice, Wq.41 (French revision of Wq. 30)
 * Josef Mysliveček – Artaserse, ED.10:B.b5
 * Giovanni Paisiello
 * Il duello comico, R.1.41
 * La frascatana, R.1.43
 * Antonio Salieri – La Calamita de’ cuori

Classical music

 * Carl Friedrich Abel – 6 Keyboard Concertos, Op. 11
 * Johann Christian Bach – Symphony in B-flat major, W.B 17
 * Wilhelm Friedemann Bach – Keyboard Sonata in B-flat major, F.9
 * Josse-François-Joseph Benaut – Mass in C major
 * Ernst Eichner – 2 Harpsichord Concertos, Op. 5
 * Joseph Haydn
 * Baryton Trio in D major, Hob.XI:34
 * Great Organ Mass
 * Niccolò Jommelli – Pietà Signore, H.Anh.42
 * Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
 * Concertone in C major, K.190/186E
 * March in D major, K.237/189c
 * Symphony No. 29 in A
 * Symphony No. 30
 * Joseph Bologne Saint-Georges
 * 2 Violin Concertos, Op. 3 (Paris: Bailleux)
 * 2 Violin Concertos, Op. 4 (Paris: Bailleux)
 * Carl Stamitz
 * Concerto for Viola No. 1 in D major
 * 6 Quartets, Op. 4
 * Johann Adolph Hasse – Il Ciclope

Methods and theory writings

 * Martin Gerbert – De cantu et musica sacra
 * Johann Adam Hiller
 * Anweisung zum musikalisch-richtigen Gesange
 * Exempel-Buch der Anweisung zum Singen
 * Heinrich Laag – Anfangsgründe zum Clavierspielen und Generalbas
 * Georg Simon Löhlein – Anweisung zum Vionlinspielen
 * Giovanni Battista Mancini – Pensieri e riflessioni pratiche sopra il canto figurato
 * Giovanni Battista Martini – Esemplare, o sia Saggio fondamentale pratico di contrappunto
 * Johann Friedrich Reichardt – Briefe eines aufmerksamen Reisenden die Musik betreffend

Births

 * February 16 – Pierre Rode, violinist, composer, (d. 1830)
 * March 5 – Christoph Ernst Friedrich Weyse, composer
 * April 17 – Václav Jan Křtitel Tomášek, organist and composer
 * October 7 – Ferdinando Orlandi, composer
 * October 23 – René de Chazet, librettist and writer (died 1844)
 * November 14 – Gaspare Spontini, composer
 * November 18 – William Horsley, composer
 * December 20 – Guillaume-Perre-Antoine Gatayes, composer

Deaths

 * January 20 – Florian Leopold Gassmann, composer, 44
 * January 30
 * Jean-Pierre Guignon, French composer (born 1702)
 * Frantisek Tuma, composer, 69
 * July 1 (buried) – Wenceslaus Wodiczka, violinist and composer
 * July 7 – Giuseppi Maria Carretti, composer
 * August 25 – Niccolò Jommelli, composer, 59
 * December 2 – Johann Friedrich Agricola, composer, 54