1742 in music

List of years in music (table)
… 1732 1733 1734 1735 1736 1737 1738 1739 1740 1741 1742 1743 1744 1745 1746 1747 1748 1749 1750 1751 1752 …
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Events

• March 23 – Johann Sebastian Bach revives his St Matthew Passion BWV 244 (BC D 3b) with some further revisions of instrumentation and voicing at St. Thomas Church, Leipzig: the work is now scored with a ripieno soprano choir and viola da gamba and harpsichord in the second orchestra (the organ for this orchestra is under repair).
• April 13 – First performance of Handel's oratorio Messiah staged at the Music Hall in Fishamble Street, Dublin. Matthew Dubourg leads the orchestra. Handel leaves Ireland on 13 August.
• December 7 – The Berlin Court Opera is inaugurated with a performance of Carl Heinrich Graun's Cleopatra e Cesare.
• Joseph Benda joins the Prussian royal orchestra.

Classical music

• Johann Sebastian Bach
  • Mer hahn en neue Oberkeet, BWV 212 ("Peasant Cantata")
  • Twenty-four Preludes and Fugues, BWV 893, book 2 of The Well-Tempered Clavier (Das Wohltemperierte Klavier)
  • The Art of Fugue (Die Kunst der Fuge), BWV 1080, earliest known manuscript (P200)
• George Frideric Handel – Messiah
• Franz Xaver Richter – Kemptener Te Deum

Opera

• Giuseppe Carcani – Demetrio
• Carl Heinrich Graun – Cesare e Cleopatra
• Niccolò Jommelli – Don Chichibio
• Gennaro Manna – Tito Manlio

Births

• May 8 – Jean-Baptiste Krumpholz, Czech composer (died 1790)
• August 19 – Jean Dauberval, French dancer (died 1806)
• Probable date – Martha Ray, English singer (murdered 1779)

Deaths

• January 24 (buried) – Benedikt Anton Aufschnaiter, Austrian composer (born 1665)
• April 16 – Stefano Benedetto Pallavicino, Paduan-born librettist (born 1672)
• June 28 - Jan Josef Ignác Brentner, Czech composer (born 1689)
• July 22 - Andrea Adami da Bolsena, Italian castrato, master of the papal choir (born 1663)
• July 12 – Evaristo Felice Dall'Abaco, Veronese-born violinist and composer (born 1675)
• August 25 – Carlos Seixas, Portuguese composer (born 1704)
• date unknown - Matteo Goffriller, Italian cello-maker (born 1659)