1848 in music

Events

• January – Franz Liszt takes up the full-time post of conductor to the Weimar court orchestra.
• March – Five Days of Milan: Uprising causes temporary closure of La Scala and postponement of the première of Mercadante's opera La schiava saracena.
• April 1 – : Richard Wagner first records his intention to write the music drama that becomes Der Ring des Nibelungen.
• May 13 – "Maamme", the national anthem of Finland, written by German-born composer Fredrik Pacius and Swedish-speaking Finnish poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg, is performed for the first time.
• July 25 – The National Anthem of Uruguay is officially declared.
• April 21 – November 23 – Frédéric Chopin visits London and Scotland.
• *October – Chopin writes his last will and testament at a friend's house in Edinburgh.
• *November 16 – Chopin makes his last public appearance on a concert platform, at the Guildhall, London.
• Charles Hallé moves from Paris to Britain due to the French Revolution of 1848 and is invited to Manchester in September.
• Returning from exile, Cuban dance band leader Claudio Brindis de Salas is imprisoned for two years by the island's authorities.
• Giuseppe Verdi wishes to replace soprano Eugenia Tadolini as Lady Macbeth for the first Naples performance of his opera Macbeth on the grounds that her voice and appearance are too beautiful. This year she creates two new rôles, Giovanna in Carlo Boniforti's Giovanna di Fiandra and Paolina in Donizetti's Poliuto and makes her London debut as a lead singer in the title role of Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix opposite Sims Reeves at Her Majesty's Theatre.
• Richard Wagner completes Lohengrin.

  Classical music

• Ida Henriette da Fonseca – Aly og Gulhyndy
• George Onslow – Quintet for Piano and Strings No. 2 in G major
• Jules Perrot – Faust, ballet
• Alfredo Piatti – Air Baskyrs, Op. 8
• Pietro Raimondi – Putifar-Giuseppe-Giacobbe
• Adrien Francois Servais – Le Barbier de Séville, Op. 6
• Robert Schumann – Bilder aus Osten, Op. 66
• Johann Strauss I – Radetzky March

  Opera

• Giuseppe Verdi – Il corsaro

  Popular music

• "Give Me My Arrows And Give Me My Bow" by Samuel Lover
• "Oh! Susanna!" by Stephen Foster

  Musical theater

• Maritana New York production opened at the Bowery Theatre on May 4 and ran for 3 performances

  Births

• January 21 – Henri Duparc, composer
• February 27 – Hubert Parry, composer, teacher and music historian
• March 15 – William J. McCoy, composer
• April 28 – Ludvig Schytte, Danish composer, pianist, and teacher
• June 1 – Otto Malling, organist and composer
• July 11 – Joaquim Antônio da Silva Calado, choro composer and flautist
• July 31 – Robert Planquette, composer and songwriter
• August 1 – František Kmoch, conductor and composer
• September 15 – Wilhelm Fitzenhagen, cellist and composer
• October 8 – Pierre De Geyter, composer
• November 11 – William Seidel, band instrument manufacturer
• November 26 – Mark Warshawsky, Yiddish-language folk poet and composer.
• December 27 – George Ratcliffe Woodward, composer
• December 30
• *Frances Allitsen, composer
• *David Jenkins, composer

  Deaths

• January 5 – Ferdinando Orlandi, opera composer
• January 23 – Márk Rózsavölgyi, violinist and composer
• January 31 – Thomas Welsh, singer and composer
• February 16 – Sophie Stebnowska, singer, actress and harpsichordist
• March 29 – Hugo Staehle, composer
• April 8
• *Louis Adam, pianist and composer
• *Gaetano Donizetti, composer
• April 24 – François van Campenhout, opera singer, conductor and composer
• May 10 – Eliodoro Bianchi, Italian opera singer
• August 5 – Nicola Vaccai, opera composer
• October 27 – Alexander Egorovich Varlamov, composer, early exponent of the Russian art song
• date unknown – Timothy Olmstead, psalmodist