1741 in music

Events

• 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

• Johann Sebastian Bach: Goldberg Variations published.
• George Frideric Handel: Messiah composed.
• Jean-Philippe Rameau: Pieces de Clavecin en Concerts published.

Opera

• Tomaso Albinoni – Artamene
• Christoph Willibald Gluck – Artaserse
• Giovanni Battista Lampugnani – Arsace

Births

• February 8 – André Grétry, composer (died 1813)
• February 9 – Henri-Joseph Rigel, composer (died 1799)
• 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 Egide Martini, composer (died 1816)
• September 25 – Wenzel Pichl, singer, violinist and composer (died 1805)
• date unknown
  • Franz Xaver Hammer, gambist, cellist and composer (died 1817)
  • 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)
• 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 7 – Henri Desmarets, French composer of sacred music (born 1661)
• probable – Francesco Scarlatti, composer (born 1666)