1842 in music

List of years in music (table)
... 1832 1833 1834 1835 1836 1837 1838 ... 1839 1840 1841 1842 1843 1844 1845 ... 1846 1847 1848 1849 1850 1851 1852 ...
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Events

• May 31 – Frederick William IV of Prussia creates a new order of merit for the arts and sciences. Those honoured include: Felix Mendelssohn, Franz Liszt and Gioacchino Rossini.
• Louis Gottschalk leaves the United States to obtain a classical training in Europe. Pierre Zimmerman, professor of piano at the Paris Conservatory, refuses to hear him because 'America is a country of Steam Engines'.
• Franz von Suppé makes his debut as a singer as Dulcamara in Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore at the Ödenburg Theatre.
• Camille Saint-Saëns begins studying piano under Camille-Marie Stamaty.

Popular music

• Antoine Gérin-Lajoie – "Un Canadien errant" ("A Wandering Canadian")

Classical music

• Frédéric Chopin – Polonaise for Piano in A flat major, B 147/Op. 53 "Heroic"
• Josef Lanner – Die Schönbrunner Waltzer
• Felix Mendelssohn – Symphony No. 3 ("Scottish")

Opera

• Angelo Catelani – Caràttaco
• Gaetano Donizetti – Linda di Chamounix, May 19 at Theater am Kärntnertor, Vienna
• Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka – Ruslan and Lyudmila, November 27^{(Old Style)} at Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre, Saint Petersburg
• Albert Lortzing – Der Wildschütz, December 31 at Stadttheater, Leipzig
• Giuseppe Verdi – Nabucco, March 9 at La Scala, Milan
• Richard Wagner – Rienzi, October 20 at Hofoper, Dresden

Musical theatre

• March 10 – Einen Jux will er sich machen by Johann Nestroy, with music by Adolf Müller, opens at the Theater an der Wien.

Births

• February 24 – Arrigo Boito, Italian poet and composer (d. 1918)
• March 10 – Mykola Lysenko, Ukrainian composer (d. 1912)
• March 22 – Carl Rosa, musical impresario (d. 1889)
• April 14 – Sven August Körling, composer of art songs (d. 1919)
• May 3 – Sophus Hagen, composer (d. 1929)
• May 12 – Jules Massenet, opera composer (d. 1912)
• May 13 – Arthur Sullivan, composer (d. 1900)
• May 14 – Alphons Czibulka, pianist, conductor and composer (d. 1894)
• June 12 – Rikard Nordraak, Norwegian composer (d. 1866)
• June 19 – Karl Zeller, Austrian composer (d. 1898)
• July 4 – Gyula Erkel, Hungarian composer, son of Ferenc Erkel
• July 29 – Charles Collette, actor and composer (d. 1924)
• September 12 – Marianne Brandt, operatic contralto (d. 1921)
• September 24 – Emma Livry, ballerina (d. 1863)
• October 13 – Antonio Pasculli, oboist and composer (d. 1924)
• November 8 – Eugen Gura, operatic baritone (d. 1906)
• November 24 – Peter Jerndorff, Danish opera singer and stage actor (d. 1926)
• date unknown – Pallavi Seshayyar, composer of Carnatic music (d. 1909)

Deaths

• March 6 – Constanze Mozart, widow of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (b. 1762)
• March 7 – Christian Theodor Weinlig, composer and conductor (b. 1780)
• March 15 – Luigi Cherubini, composer (b. 1760)
• April 6 – Johann Anton André, composer and music publisher (b. 1775)
• May 5 – Jean Elleviou, operatic tenor (b. 1769)
• June 4 – Georg Friedrich Treitschke, librettist (b. 1776)
• June 20 – Michael Umlauf, violinist and composer (b. 1781)
• July 23 – Timothy Swan, hat-maker and composer (b. 1758)
• August 25 – Jérôme-Joseph de Momigny, composer and music theorist (b. 1762)
• September 15 – Pierre Baillot, violinist and composer (b. 1771)
• October 8 – Christoph Ernst Friedrich Weyse, composer (b. 1774)
• November 3 – Franz Clement, violinist, pianist, composer, conductor and friend of Beethoven (b. 1780)
• December 18 – Giuseppe Nicolini, composer (b. 1762)
• December 25 – Bedřich Diviš Weber, composer and founding principal of the Prague Conservatory (b. 1766)