1739 in music

Events

• March 27 Johann Sebastian Bach performs the Brockes-Passion TWV 5: 1 at St. Nicholas Church, Leipzig.
• September – Leopold Mozart is expelled from the Benedictine University of Salzburg for poor attendance.
• 1739–1749 Bach revises his St John Passion BWV 245 (BC D 2e)--version never performed during his lifetime (version we know today).
• 1739–1742 Bach starts revising some of his Weimar period Chorale preludes in a new manuscript (the so-called Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes BWV 651-668). Included at this period are BWV 651–663. The manuscript would also contain his Sonatas BWV 525-530 (1727-1732) and also his Canonic Variations on "Vom Himmel hoch da komm' ich her" BWV 769 (1747).

Classical music

• Johann Sebastian Bach – Clavier Übung, book 3, a collection of organ music
• George Frederic Handel – Israel in Egypt, an oratorio, premièred in London

Opera

• Domenico Alberti — Olimpiade
• Leonardo Leo — La Finta Frascatana (also known as Amor vuol sofferenze)
• Giovanni Battista Pescetti — Angelica e Medoro
• Pietro Pulli — Il carnevale e la pazzia
• Jean-Philippe Rameau
  • Dardanus
  • Les fêtes d'Hébé
• Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer — Zaïde, reine de Grenade

Births

• May 12 – Johann Baptist Vanhal, composer (died 1813)
• August 28 – Agostino Accorimboni, opera composer (died 1818)
• September 7 or 8 – Joseph Legros, singer and composer (died 1793)
• October 24 – Duchess Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, composer (died 1807)
• November 2 – Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf, composer (died 1799)
• November 5 – Hugh Montgomerie, 12th Earl of Eglinton, politician and composer (died 1819)

Deaths

• April 25 – Santiago de Murcia, guitarist and composer (born 1673)
• May 9 – Carlo Ignazio Monza, composer (born c. 1680)
• May 27 – Johann Gottfried Bernhard Bach, organist, son of Johann Sebastian Bach (born 1715)
• July 24 – Benedetto Marcello, composer (born 1686)
• September 12 – Reinhard Keiser, composer (born 1674)
• date unknown – Antonio Bioni, opera composer (born 1698)
• probable – Jean-Adam Guilain, organist and harpsichordist (born c. 1680)