1876 in music

This article is about music-related events in 1876.

Events

 * February – Baritone Lithgow James joins the English Opera Company, where he begins a partnership with his future wife Florence St. John.
 * April - Tchaikovsky completes Swan Lake
 * February 24 – Incidental music composed by Edvard Grieg for Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt premieres.
 * May 17 – Antonín Dvořák begins composing his Moravian Duets.
 * August 16 – Richard Wagner's Siegfried debuts in the new Bayreuth Festspielhaus.
 * August 17 – Richard Wagner's Götterdämmerung debuts in the new Bayreuth Festspielhaus.
 * Soprano Rosa Hasselbeck marries the conductor and composer Josef Sucher.

Published popular music

 * "Grandfather's Clock" by Henry Clay Work
 * "The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond" by Andrew Lang
 * "Gay As A Lark" by Septimus Winner
 * "When The Great Red Dawn is Shining" (anon)
 * "Old Aunt Jemima" by Billy Kersands
 * "Molly Malone"
 * "Rose of Killarney" by George Cooper & John Rogers Thomas

Classical music

 * Johannes Brahms – Symphony No. 1
 * Pietro Abbà Cornaglia – Requiem
 * Felix Draeseke – Six Fugues for piano; Dämmerungsräume: five piano pieces, Op. 14
 * Antonín Dvořák – Piano Concerto in G minor, Op. 33
 * Gabriel Fauré – Violin Sonata No. 1 in A major, Op. 13
 * César Franck – Les Éolides
 * Benjamin Godard – Concerto Romantique
 * Edvard Grieg – Ballade in the Form of Variations on a Norwegian Folk Song (for piano), Op. 24
 * Édouard Lalo – Cello Concerto
 * Gustav Mahler – Piano Quartet movement in A
 * Bedřich Smetana – String Quartet No. 1 in E minor, From My Life
 * Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – The Seasons (for piano), Op. 37a
 * Charles-Marie Widor – Organ Symphonies Nos. 1–3, Op. 13

Opera

 * Arrigo Boito – Mefistofele
 * Luigi Denza – Wallenstein
 * Amilcare Ponchielli – La Gioconda
 * Bedřich Smetana – The Kiss
 * Richard Wagner
 * Siegfried
 * Götterdämmerung
 * Ivan Zajc – Nikola Šubić Zrinski

Musical theater

 * Richard Genée – Der Seekadette
 * Robert Planquette – Les cloches de Corneville

Births

 * January 12
 * Annie Krull, operatic soprano (died 1947)
 * Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, composer (died 1948)
 * January 19 – Rosina Storchio, Italian lyric soprano (died 1945)
 * January 29
 * Havergal Brian, composer (died 1972)
 * Ludolf Nielsen, composer (died 1939)
 * February 2 – Giovanni Zenatello, tenor (died 1949)
 * February 28 – John Alden Carpenter, composer
 * March 11 – Carl Ruggles, composer (died 1971)
 * May 17 – Carrie Tubb, soprano (died 1976)
 * May 19 – Jan Ingenhoven, Dutch composer and conductor
 * June 2 – Hakon Børresen, Danish composer (died 1954)
 * June 5 – Tony Jackson, jazz musician (died 1920)
 * August 14 – Florrie Forde, Australian-born English music hall singer (died 1940)
 * August 16 – Karl Hoschna, Bohemian-born US composer
 * September 15 – Bruno Walter, conductor (died 1962)
 * November 23 – Manuel de Falla, composer (died 1946)
 * December 11 – Mieczysław Karłowicz, composer (died 1909)
 * December 29
 * Pablo Casals, cellist (died 1973)
 * Lionel Tertis, violist (died 1975)

Deaths

 * February 28 – Raimondo Boucheron, composer, 75
 * March 5
 * Francesco Maria Piave, librettist and friend of Giuseppe Verdi, 65
 * Marie d'Agoult, lover of Franz Liszt and mother of Cosima Wagner, 70
 * March 28 – Joseph Böhm, violinist, 80
 * April 19 – Samuel Sebastian Wesley, organist and composer, 65
 * June 28 – August Wilhelm Ambros, composer and music historian, 69
 * August 29 – Félicien-César David, composer, 66
 * September 9 – Mary Shaw, operatic contralto, 62
 * September 30 – Henri Bertini, pianist and composer, 77
 * October 1 – James Lick, American carpenter and piano builder, 80
 * November 8 – Antonio Tamburini, operatic baritone, 76
 * November 9 – Édouard Batiste, organist and composer, 56
 * November 18 – Nicolas Bosret, blind organist and composer, 77
 * December 3 – Hermann Goetz, composer, 35 (tuberculosis)
 * December 14 – George Frederick Anderson, violinist, 83