1859 in music

See also: 1858 in music, other events of 1859, 1860 in music and the list of 'years in music'.

Events

• March 4 – Charter of the French Opera House, New Orleans, which opens on December 1 of the same year with a gala performance of Rossini's William Tell.

Popular music

• None listed

Classical Music

• Serenade no.2, A by Johannes Brahms
• Helges Treue by Felix Draeseke

Opera

• Faust first performed in Paris. Music by Charles Gounod with libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on a work by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
• Un Ballo in Maschera by Giuseppe Verdi

Musical theater

• Going It Blind – Broadway production

Births

• January 21 – Antoni Wincenty Rutkowski, composer
• January 24 – Alexander Alexandrovich Il'yinsky, composer
• January 26 – W. O. Forsyth
• February 1 – Victor Herbert
• March 8 – Otto Taubmann
• March 12 – Josef Cyril Sychra, composer
• March 26 – Nikolay Alexandrovich Sokolov, composer
• April 3 – Reginald De Koven, US composer
• April 5 – Wilhelm Harteveld, composer
• April 11 – Basil Harwood, composer
• May 1 – Bohuslav Jeremias, composer
• May 2 – Eugene D'Harcourt, composer
• June 22 – Frank Heino Damrosch, founder of Institute of Music
• June 27 – Mildred J Hill, composer of "Happy Birthday to You"
• August 20 – Silas Leachman
• September 4 – Edoardo Mascheroni, composer
• October 14 – Camille Chevillard, composer
• November 4 – Stanislaw Niewiadomski
• November 1 – William Henry Grattan Flood, composer
• November 30 – Sergei Mikhailovich Liapunov
• December 23 – Adrian Ross, English lyricist
• December 27 – William Henry Hadow, composer
• December 28 – Gerard Brucken Fock, composer
• December 30 – Josef Bohuslav Foerster
• December 31 – Max Fiedler, conductor
• unknown date – August Enna

Deaths

• January 20 – Bettina Brentano, composer
• February 6 – Johannes Josephus Viotta, composer
• March 1 – Josef Theodor Krov, composer
• June 18 – Joseph Hartmann Stuntz, composer
• July 29 – Auguste Mathieu Panseron, composer
• November 7 – Carl Gottlieb Reissiger, composer
• November 22 – Louis Spohr
• December 31 – Luigi Ricci, composer