1774 in music

Events

• Antonio Salieri is appointed court composer to the Emperor Joseph II.
• Domenico Cimarosa is invited to Rome for the opera season.
• Charles Burney writes A Plan for a Music School.
• Pascal Taskin becomes keeper of the King's instruments.
• Georg Joseph Vogler becomes a pupil of Giovanni Battista Martini at Bologna.

Opera

• Pasquale Anfossi – Olimpiade
• Christoph Willibald Gluck
  • Iphigenie en Aulide Wq.40
  • Orphée et Eurydice, Wq.41 (French revision of Wq. 30)
• Josef Mysliveček – Artaserse, ED.10:B.b5
• Giovanni Paisiello
  • Il duello comico, R.1.41
  • La frascatana, R.1.43
• Antonio Salieri – La Calamita de’ cuori

Classical music

• Carl Friedrich Abel – 6 Keyboard Concertos, Op. 11
• Johann Christian Bach – Symphony in B-flat major, W.B 17
• Wilhelm Friedemann Bach – Keyboard Sonata in B-flat major, F.9
• Josse-François-Joseph Benaut – Mass in C major
• Ernst Eichner – 2 Harpsichord Concertos, Op. 5
• Joseph Haydn
  • Baryton Trio in D major, Hob.XI:34
  • Great Organ Mass
• Niccolò Jommelli – Pietà Signore, H.Anh.42
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
  • Concertone in C major, K.190/186E
  • March in D major, K.237/189c
  • Symphony No. 29 in A
  • Symphony No. 30
• Joseph Bologne Saint-Georges
  • 2 Violin Concertos, Op. 3 (Paris: Bailleux)
  • 2 Violin Concertos, Op. 4 (Paris: Bailleux)
• Carl Stamitz
  • Concerto for Viola No. 1 in D major
  • 6 Quartets, Op. 4
• Johann Adolph Hasse – Il Ciclope

Methods and theory writings

• Martin Gerbert – De cantu et musica sacra
• Johann Adam Hiller
  • Anweisung zum musikalisch-richtigen Gesange
  • Exempel-Buch der Anweisung zum Singen
• Heinrich Laag – Anfangsgründe zum Clavierspielen und Generalbas
• Georg Simon Löhlein – Anweisung zum Vionlinspielen
• Giovanni Battista Mancini – Pensieri e riflessioni pratiche sopra il canto figurato
• Giovanni Battista Martini – Esemplare, o sia Saggio fondamentale pratico di contrappunto
• Johann Friedrich Reichardt – Briefe eines aufmerksamen Reisenden die Musik betreffend

Births

• February 16 – Pierre Rode, violinist, composer, (d. 1830)
• March 5 – Christoph Ernst Friedrich Weyse, composer
• April 17 – Václav Jan Křtitel Tomášek, organist and composer
• October 7 – Ferdinando Orlandi, composer
• October 23 – René de Chazet, librettist and writer (died 1844)
• November 14 – Gaspare Spontini, composer (died 1851)
• November 18 – William Horsley, composer
• December 20 – Guillaume-Perre-Antoine Gatayes, composer

Deaths

• January 20 – Florian Leopold Gassmann, composer, 44
• January 30
  • Jean-Pierre Guignon, French composer (born 1702)
  • Frantisek Tuma, composer, 69
• July 1 (buried) – Wenceslaus Wodiczka, violinist and composer
• July 7 – Giuseppi Maria Carretti, composer
• August 25 – Niccolò Jommelli, composer, 59
• December 2 – Johann Friedrich Agricola, composer, 54