1864 in music

Events

 * January 13 – American songwriter Stephen Foster ("Oh! Susanna", "Old Folks at Home") dies aged 37 in New York City leaving a scrap of paper reading "Dear friends and gentle hearts". His parlor song "Beautiful Dreamer" is published in March.
 * February 24 – Bedřich Smetana's symphonic poem Hakon Jarl is premiered in Prague.
 * February 29 – Composer Gioachino Rossini celebrates his 72nd (17th) birthday with a party. It is 32 years since his last opera.
 * May – Richard Wagner meets his new patron, the young Ludwig II of Bavaria, in Munich.
 * December 17 – Jacques Offenbach's operetta La Belle Hélène receives its first performance at the Paris Variétés
 * Hans von Bülow takes over from Franz Lachner at the Munich opera.
 * Mili Balakirev begins sketching his Symphony No. 1. It will not be performed till 1898.

Published popular music

 * "Beautiful Dreamer" by Stephen Foster
 * "Der Deitcher's Dog" ("O Where, O Where Has My Little Dog Gone?") by Septimus Winner
 * "The Picture on the Wall" by Henry Clay Work
 * "Pretty Polly Perkins of Paddington Green" w. Harry Clifton m. traditional?
 * "Shall We Gather at the River?" w.m. Robert Lowry
 * "Somebody's Darling" w.m. John Hill Hewitt
 * "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! (The Boys Are Marching)" by George F. Root

Classical music

 * Gaetano Braga – Souvenir du Rhin
 * Johannes Brahms
 * 9 Lieder and Songs, Op.32
 * Piano Quintet Op. 34
 * Anton Bruckner
 * Mass No.1 in D minor, WAB 26
 * Herbstlied, WAB 73
 * Um Mitternacht, WAB 89
 * Aleksandr Dargomyzhsky – Kazachok
 * Félicien David – Allegretto agitato
 * Niels Gade – 3 Fantasie pieces for clarinet and piano, Op. 43
 * Hermann Goetz – Frühlings-Ouvertüre, Op.15
 * Louis Gottschalk – The Dying Poet
 * Ferdinand Hiller
 * Operette ohne Text, Op.106
 * 12 Lieder (Hiller Album), Op.111
 * Salomon Jadassohn – Symphony No.2, Op.28
 * Adolf Jensen
 * Präludium und Romanze, Op.19
 * 7 Gesänge aus dem spanischen Liederbuche, Op.21
 * 6 Lieder, Op.24
 * Piano Sonata, Op.25
 * Friedrich Kiel – Piano Concerto
 * Heinrich Lichner – 3 Piano Sonatas, Op.4
 * William Mason – Ballade et barcarole, Op.15
 * Josef Rheinberger – 5 Motets, Op.40
 * Gioachino Rossini – Petite messe solennelle
 * Ernst Rudorff – String Sextet, Op.5
 * Camille Saint-Saëns – Piano Trio No.1, Op.18
 * Franz Strauss – Nocturno for Horn and Piano
 * Peter Tchaikovsky – The Storm
 * Thomas Tellefsen – Trio for piano, violin and cello (Opus 31)
 * Stanislas Verroust – Solo de concert No.11, Op.85
 * Pauline Viardot – 12 Poems by Pushkin, Fet and Turgenev
 * Robert Volkmann – Symphony no. 2
 * Władysław Żeleński
 * Valse-caprice, Op.9
 * 2 Morceaux de salon, Op.11

Opera

 * Daniel François Esprit Auber – La fiancée du roi de Garbe (premiered January 11 in Paris)
 * Flor van Duyse – Rosalinde (libretto by Karel Versnaeyen, premiered in Antwerp)
 * Charles Gounod - Mireille, opera premiered on March 19, in Paris
 * Karel Miry – Bouchard-d'Avesnes (opera in 5 acts, libretto by Hippoliet van Peene, premiered on March 6 in Ghent)
 * Jacques Offenbach – Die Rheinnixen (The Rhine Fairies)
 * George Alexander Macfarren – Helvellyn, (opera in 4 acts, libretto by John Oxenford, premiered on November 3 in London)

Musical theatre

 * La Belle Hélène (Lyrics: Henri Meilhac & Ludovic Halévy Music: Jacques Offenbach) opens at the Théâtre des Variétés, Paris, on December 17.

Births

 * February 6 – John Henry Mackay, lyricist (died 1933)
 * February 7
 * Ricardo Castro, Mexican concert pianist and composer (d. 1907)
 * Arthur Collins, singer (d. 1933)
 * February 9 – Miina Härma, Estonian organist, composer, and conductor (d. 1941)
 * March 12 – Alice Tegnér, organist, composer (d. 1943)
 * April 10 – Eugen d'Albert, composer, pianist (d. 1932)
 * May 23 – Louis Glass, composer (d. 1936)
 * June 11 – Richard Strauss, composer, conductor (d. 1949)
 * July 6 – Alberto Nepomuceno, composer and conductor (d. 1920)
 * July 20 – Erik Axel Karlfeldt, lyricist (died 1931)
 * August 18 – Gemma Bellincioni, operatic soprano (d. 1950)
 * October 7 – Louis F. Gottschalk, composer (d. 1934)
 * date unknown – Alice Esty, operatic soprano (d. 1935)

Deaths

 * January 13 – Stephen Foster, songwriter (b. 1826)
 * January 15 – Isaac Nathan, English-born composer and musicologist, "father of Australian music" (b. c.1791)
 * January 26 – Otto Lindblad, composer (b. 1809)
 * February 16 – Václav Jindřich Veit, lawyer and composer (b. 1806)
 * March 30 – Louis Schindelmeisser, clarinettist, conductor and composer (b. 1811)
 * May 2 – Giacomo Meyerbeer, composer (b. 1791)
 * June 3 – Anna Maria Sessi, opera singer (b. 1790)
 * July 28 – Johann Hermann Kufferath, composer (born 1797)
 * August 13 – Berthold Sigismund, lyricist (born 1819)
 * September 4 – Manuel Antonio Carreño, Venezuelan musician, teacher and diplomat (b. 1812)
 * October 1 – Christian Friedrich Ludwig Buschmann, musical instrument maker (b. 1805)
 * October 7 – Apollon Grigoryev, poet and songwriter (b. 1822) (alcoholism)
 * December 20 – Josef Proksch, pianist and composer (b. 1794)