1776 in music

Events

 * September 24 – The Bolshoi Theatre Company hosts its first annual opera season, with the opening of the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in St Petersburg.
 * Giovanni Paisiello is invited to the court of Catherine the Great, where he will stay for eight years.
 * Court Theatre in Stockholm built by King Gustav III of Sweden

Popular music

 * Daniel Dow – "Money Musk"
 * Psalms and Hymns for Public and Private Worship by Augustus Montague Toplady

Opera

 * Gaetano Marinelli – Il Barone di Sardafritta
 * Giovanni Paisiello – Il finto spettro (December 26, Mannheim)
 * Ignaz Pleyel – Die Fee Urgele
 * Antonio Tozzi – Le Due Gemelli
 * Tommaso Traetta – Germondo

Classical music

 * Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
 * 6 Keyboard Trios, Wq.89
 * 3 Keyboard Trios, Wq.90
 * Johann Christian Bach – Die Amerikanerin
 * Luigi Boccherini – 6 String Quintets, G.277-282 (Op.13)
 * Felice Giardini – String Quartet in E-flat major
 * William Goodwin – Voluntary XII in D major
 * François Joseph Gossec – Symphonie de chasse; Symphonie en ré
 * Johann Wilhelm Hässler – 6 Keyboard Sonatas
 * James Hook – The Ascension (oratorio)
 * Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Haffner Serenade, K.250
 * Joseph Haydn – Symphony No. 61, Hob.I:61
 * Juliane Reichardt – An den Mond
 * Antonio Salieri – La Passione di Nostro Signore Gesù Cristo für Soli, vierstimmigen Chor und Orchester
 * Carl Stamitz – 6 Quartets, Op. 14
 * Daniel Gottlob Türk – 6 Keyboard Sonatas, Sammlung 1
 * Johann Adolph Hasse - Te Deum in G major

Methods and theory writings

 * Charles Burney – A General History of Music, vol. 1 (vol. 2 published 1782, vols. 3 and 4 in 1789)
 * John Hawkins – A General History of the Science and Practice of Music

Births

 * January 24 – Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, author and composer
 * February 18 – John Parry, composer
 * February 21 – Vincenzo Lavigna, composer
 * March 31 – Joseph Küffner, composer (died 1856)
 * April 8 – Thaddaus Weigl, composer
 * April 27 – Hyacinthe Jadin, composer (died 1800)
 * May 10 – George Thomas Smart, composer
 * May 12 – Juan Bros y Bertomel, composer
 * May 13 – Charles Ots and Rodrigo Ferreira da Costa, composers
 * June 1 – John George Schetky, composer
 * August 4 – Wenzel Sedlak, composer
 * August 15 – Ignaz Xaver von Seyfried, composer
 * August 16 – Philipp Jakob Riotte, composer
 * August 19 – Johan Peter Strömberg, dancer and theatre director
 * August 29 – Georg Friedrich Treitschke, librettist (died 1842)
 * December 6 – Paul Friedrich Struck, composer

Deaths

 * February 13 – Luis Misón, composer, 50
 * April 22 – Johann Adolph Scheibe, music theorist, 67
 * May 6 – James Kent, composer, 76
 * June 10 – Leopold Widhalm, luthier, 53
 * November 29 – Zanetta Farussi, opera singer, 69
 * date unknown
 * Thomas Capell, organist (date of birth unknown)
 * Josep Carcoler, composer, 78
 * Aaron Williams, composer, 45.
 * probable – Matteo Capranica, composer