# 1855 in music
## Events

* February 17 – Franz Liszt gives the first performance of his Piano Concerto No. 1, conducted by Hector Berlioz.
* March–June – Richard Wagner stays in London to conduct a series of concerts.
* June 13 - Twentieth opera of Giuseppe Verdi "Les vêpres siciliennes" (The Sicilian Vespers) is premiered in Paris.
* July 5 – Jacques Offenbach inaugurates performances of operettas as director of his own theater, the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens.
* Late autumn – Mily Balakirev meets Mikhail Glinka in Saint Petersburg. Their friendship cements the former's ambition to foster Russian nationalist music.
* November 27 – Piano Trio No. 1 of Brahms is given its first public performance at Dodsworth's Hall in Manhattan on Broadway at 11th Street. It is the earliest performance of Brahms' music in the United States
* December 3 – The Piano Trio in G minor by Bedřich Smetana is given its first public performance in Prague.
* Tchaikovsky takes private music lessons with Rudolph Kündinger, who tells Tchaikovsky's father that he saw nothing to suggest a future composer.

## Bands formed

* Black Dyke Mills Band re-formed after failure of its immediate predecessor, the Queenshead Band in Queensbury, West Yorkshire, England.

## Popular music

* Stephen Foster – "Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming"
* George Martin Lane – "The Lone Fish Ball"
* Caroline Norton – "Juanita"
* words Septimus Winner (as "Alice Hawthorne") music Richard Milburn – "Listen to the Mocking Bird"

## Classical music

* Georges Bizet – Symphony in C
* Franz Berwald – Piano Concerto in D
* Eduard Franck – String Quartet in F minor op. 49
* Charles Gounod – Symphony No. 1 in D
* Stephen Heller
** 2 Tarantelles, Op.85
** Im Walde, Op.86
* Friedrich Hermann – Capriccio No.1 for 3 Violins, Op.2
* Franz Liszt
** Book 1 of Années de pèlerinage
** Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H
** Les préludes, S.97
** Prometheus, S.99
** 3 Lieder aus Schillers "Wilhelm Tell", S.292
** Wie singt die Lerche schön, S.312
* Anton Rubinstein – Quintet for Piano and Winds Op. 55 (probably from this year)
* Camille Saint-Saëns
** Six Bagatelles for piano, Op. 3
** Quintet for Piano and Strings, Op. 14
* Bedřich Smetana – Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 15
* Louis Spohr – 6 Gesänge, Op.154

## Opera

* George Frederick Bristow – Rip van Winkle
* Fromental Halévy – L'inconsolable
* Jacques Offenbach – one-act operettas
** Ba-ta-clan
** Les deux aveugles
* Giuseppe Verdi – Les vêpres siciliennes

## Musical theatre

* Po-ca-hon-tas, or The Gentle Savage (Music: James Gaspard Maeder, Book and Lyrics: John Brougham) Broadway production opened Wallack's Lyceum Theatre on December 24 and transferred to the Bowery Theatre on June 28, 1856. Featuring John Brougham as John Smith.

## Births

* January 20 – Ernest Chausson, composer (d. 1899)
* February 15 – Gustav Hollaender, composer (died 1915)
* February 18 – Vera Timanova, Russian pianist
* March 12 – Eduard Birnbaum, cantor (died 1920)
* April 18 – Josef Gruber, composer (died 1933)
* May 2 – Theodore Moses Tobani, composer (died 1933)
* May 9 – Julius Röntgen, composer (d. 1932)
* May 10 – Carl Kiefert, conductor (died 1937)
* May 11 – Anatoly Lyadov, conductor, composer and music teacher (d. 1914)
* June 5 – Hanuš Wihan, cellist (died 1920)
* June 17 – Fritz Kauffmann, composer (died 1934)
* July 25 – Edward Solomon, pianist, conductor and composer (died 1895)
* August 2 – Cornélie van Zanten, opera singer and teacher (d. 1946)
* August 27 – Domenico Salvatori, castrato singer (d. 1909)
* September 6 – Ferdinand Hummel, composer (died 1928)
* September 9 – Michele Esposito, pianist and composer (d. 1929)
* October 16 – William Barclay Squire, musicologist (died 1927)
* October 30 – Károly Aggházy, composer (died 1918)
* November 1 – Guido Adler, musicologist (died 1941)
* November 6 – Paul Kalisch, singer (d. 1946)
* December 7 – Gunhild Rosén, ballerina
* December 23 – Alan Gray, composer (died 1935)
* December 26 – Arnold Mendelssohn, composer (died 1933)

## Deaths

* January 25 – Gaetano Rossi, librettist (b. 1774)
* February 1 – Claus Harms, researcher of Lutheran hymns (b. 1778)
* February 27 – Louis Lambillotte, composer and music palaeographer (b. 1796)
* March 17 – Ramon Carnicer, conductor and composer (b. 1789)
* April 12 – Pedro Albéniz, pianist and composer (b. 1795)
* April 30 – Henry Rowley Bishop, composer (b. 1786)
* July 19 – Karl Keller, composer and flautist (b. 1784)
* September 27 – August Lanner, conductor and composer (b. 1835)
* November 9 – Domenico Cosselli, operatic bass-baritone (b. 1801)
* November 21 – Olea Crøger, collector of Norwegian folk tunes (b. 1801)
* November 25 – Thomas Commuck, composer (born 1804)
* December 2 – Frédéric Bérat, songwriter and composer (b. 1801)
* Marie Antoinette Petersén, singer and member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music (b. 1771)