1868 in music

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Events

January 5 – Max Bruch's Violin Concerto no. 1 in G minor is first performed in its revised version by Joseph Joachim in Bremen with Karl Martin Rheinthaler conducting.
February 3 – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 1 ("Winter Daydreams") is first performed in Moscow at a Russian Musical Society concert (having been premièred in Saint Petersburg).
April 10 (Good Friday) – The six movement version of Brahms' A German Requiem (Ein deutsches Requiem) is premièred in Bremen Cathedral with Brahms conducting and Julius Stockhausen as the baritone soloist.
June 21 – Richard Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg debuts at the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater, Munich with Hans von Bülow conducting.
August 15 – Teatro Giuseppe Verdi opens in Busseto, Italy.
October – Modest Mussorgsky begins work on his opera Boris Godunov, which is completed six years later.
December 21 – The newly-rebuilt Gaiety Theatre, London (in the West End) reopens with operatic parodies, including the burlesque Robert the Devil, or The Nun, the Dun, and the Son of a Gun, setting new lyrics by W. S. Gilbert to popular continental opera tunes.
Edvard Grieg writes his Piano Concerto while staying on Zealand.

"Come Back To Erin" by Claribel
"Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still" w. J.E. Carpenter m. W.T. Wrighton
"I Cannot Sing The Old Songs" w.m. Claribel (Charlotte Alington [Mrs. Charles Barnard])
"Little Footsteps" w. Michael Bennett Leavitt m. James A. Barney
"The Man on the Flying Trapeze" by George Leybourne, Gaston Lyle, & Alfred Lee (first published the previous year)
"Sweet Bye and Bye" w. S. Fillmore m. Joseph P. Webster
"Walking In The Zoo" w. Hugh Willoughby Sweny m. Alfred Lee
"The Whispering Hope" by Septimus Winner
"The Widow In The Cottage By The Sea" w.m. Charles A. White
"Yield Not To Temptation" w.m. Horatio R. Palmer

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Arrigo Boito – Mefistofele
Gaetano Braga – Ruy Blas
Gialdino Gialdini – Rosmunda premiered March 5 at the Teatro Pergola, Florence
Jacques Offenbach – The Island of Tulipatan
Richard Wagner – Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, premièred in the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater, Munich

La Belle Hélène (Music by Jacques Offenbach Libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy) New York production opened at Pike's Opera House on November 2 and ran for 14 performances
Ixion Broadway production opened at Wood's Museum and Metropolitan on September 28 and ran for 120 performances. Starring Lydia Thompson.
The White Fawn Broadway production opened at Niblo's Garden on January 17 and ran for 176 performances

Early? (or November 24?) – Scott Joplin, African American ragtime composer, pianist (d. 1917)
January 26 – Juventino Rosas, composer, band leader (d. 1894)
April 13 – John Blackwood McEwen, composer, educator (d. 1948)
April 19 – Max von Schillings, composer, conductor (d. 1933)
April 22 – José Vianna da Motta, composer, pianist (d. 1948)
July 19 – Florence Foster Jenkins, soprano (d. 1944)
August 7 – Granville Bantock, composer (d. 1946)
August 21 – Vess Ossman, ragtime banjo artist (d. 1923)
September 12 – Jan Brandts Buys, composer (d. 1933)

January 3 – Moritz Hauptmann, composer (b. 1792)
February 25 – Sophie Schröder, actress and singer (b. 1781)
March 2 – Carl Eberwein, composer (b. 1786)
April 3 – Franz Berwald, composer (b. 1796)
April 26 – Karel Strakatý, singer (b. 1804)
June 5 – Anselm Hüttenbrenner, composer (b. 1794)
July 6 – Samuel Lover, songwriter (b. 1797)
August 11 – Halfdan Kjerulf, composer (b. 1815)
November 13 – Gioacchino Rossini, composer (b. 1792)
November 25 – Franz Brendel, music critic (b. 1811)
December 23 – Karl Ferdinand Adam, composer and cantor (b. 1806)
date unknown
- Berl Broder, singer and troubadour (b. 1815)
- Erik Jonsson Helland, Hardanger fiddle maker (b. 1816)