1741 in music

Events

• August 22–September 14 – George Frideric Handel composes his oratorio Messiah in London to a libretto compiled by Charles Jennens, completing the "Hallelujah Chorus" on September 6.
• October 2 – The Bull's Head Musical Society opens a Music Hall in Fishamble Street, Dublin, Ireland.
• November 18 – George Frideric Handel arrives in Dublin to give a series of concerts having tried out the Messiah privately en route in Chester.
• November 25 – Marguerite-Antoinette Couperin, the first female court musician at the French court, sells her official post to Bernard de Bury.
• Johann Friedrich Agricola arrives in Berlin to study musical composition under Johann Joachim Quantz.
• Antonio Vivaldi leaves Venice for Vienna, but dies shortly after his arrival.
• 19-year-old Jiří Antonín Benda is given the post of second violinist at the Berlin court of King Frederick II of Prussia.
• William Hogarth produces an engraving entitled The Enraged Musician.

Classical music

• Girolamo Abos – Magnificat à quarto concertato con strum.
• Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
• Harpsichord Concerto in A major, H.411
• Symphony in G major, H.648
• Johann Sebastian Bach – Goldberg Variations, BWV 988
• Joseph Bodin de Boismortier – 6 Flute Sonatas, Op. 91
• Michel Corrette – Nouveau Livre de noëls
• Jean-Baptiste Dupuits – 6 Sonatas for Vielle and Harpsichord, Op. 3
• Willem de Fesch – 8 Concertos in 7 Parts, Op. 10
• Baldassare Galuppi – Confitebor tibi Domine in C major, B.II.2
• Christoph Graupner
• Trio Sonata in E major, GWV 208
• Flute Sonata in G major, GWV 708
• George Frideric Handel
• Messiah composed.
• Quel fior che all'alba ride, HWV 192 (duet)
• Overture in D major, HWV 424
• Johann Adolph Hasse – 12 Flute Concertos, Op. 3
• Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg – Pièces de Clavecin
• Jean-Philippe Rameau – Pieces de Clavecin en Concerts
• Georg Philipp Telemann – 24 Odes, TWV 25:86-109

Opera

• Tomaso Albinoni – Artamene
• Andrea Bernasconi – Demofoonte
• Baldassare Galuppi – Penelope
• Christoph Willibald Gluck – Artaserse
• Karl Heinrich Graun – Rodelinda regina de' Longobardi, GraunWV B:I:6
• George Frideric Handel – Deidamia, HWV 42 (composed 1740)
• Johann Adolph Hasse – Numa Pompilio
• Niccolò Jommelli – Semiramide riconosciuta
• Giovanni Battista Lampugnani – Arsace

Publications

• Johann Sebastian Bach – Clavier-Übung IV (Nuremberg: Balthasar Schmid), now known as the Goldberg Variations.
• The Cocquiel Manuscript, B-Br Ms II 3326 Mus, containing sacred music by various composers (including Jacob La Fosse and Abraham van den Kerckhoven)

Methods and theory writings

• Michel Corrette – Méthode pour apprendre le violoncelle, Op. 24
• Antoine Terrasson – Historique sur la vielle
• Carlo Tessarini – Gramatica di musica

Births

• February 8 – André Grétry, composer (died 1813)
• February 9
• Joseph Corfe (died 1820)
• Henri-Joseph Rigel, composer (died 1799)
• April 17 – Johann Gottlieb Naumann (died 1801)
• May 23 – Andrea Luchesi, composer (died 1801)
• July 17 – Suzette Defoye, opera singer and ballerina
• July 27 – François-Hippolyte Barthélémon, violinist and composer (died 1808)
• August 31 – Jean-Paul-Égide Martini, composer (died 1816)
• September 11 – Johann Jakob Engel (died 1802)
• September 25 – Václav Pichl, singer, violinist and composer (died 1805)
• November 27 – Jean-Pierre Duport (died 1818)
• date unknown
• Franz Xaver Hammer, gambist, cellist and composer (died 1817)
• Giacomo Rust (died 1786)
• Anna Brita Wendelius, singer and member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Music (died 1804).

Deaths

• January 5 – Ann Turner Robinson, English soprano
• February 13 – Johann Fux, composer and theorist (born 1660)
• March 17 – Jean-Baptiste Rousseau (born 1671)
• June 21 – Joseph-Hector Fiocco, Flemish violinist and composer (born 1703)
• July 28 – Antonio Vivaldi, composer (born 1678)
• August – David Owen, Welsh harpist (born 1712)
• August 24 – Gabriel-Vincent Thévenard, French operatic baritone (born 1669)
• September 3 (or after) – Carlo Francesco Cesarini (born 1666)
• September 7 – Henri Desmarets, French composer of sacred music (born 1661)
• probable – Francesco Scarlatti, composer (born 1666)

References