# 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)