1789 in music

Events

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart travels to Berlin.
• Joseph Haydn meets Maria Anna von Genzinger.
• Adalbert Gyrowetz arrives in Paris.
• Luigi Cherubini becomes music director for the Théâtre Monsieur.
• Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach becomes Kapellmeister at Berlin.
• Anna Storace appears in a London production of Giovanni Paisiello's Il Barbiere di Siviglia.
• Mozart writes to his fellow Freemason and benefactor, Puchberg, saying that next time they meet, he will tell him about Antonio Salieri’s plots "which, however, have completely failed".
• Ignaz Joseph Pleyel becomes Kapellmeister of Strasbourg Cathedral in succession to Franz Xaver Richter.

Classical Music

• Ludwig van Beethoven – Two Preludes through all twelve major keys for piano, Op. 39
• William Crotch – The Captivity of Judah (oratorio)
• Joseph Haydn – Symphony No. 92 in G, "Oxford"
• Leopold Anton Kozeluch – Concerto for Clarinet no 2 in E flat major
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Clarinet Quintet in A

Opera

• Domenico Cimarosa – I Due Baroni
• André Grétry – Raoul Barbe-Bleue
• Giovanni Paisiello – Nina
• Johann Friedrich Reichardt – Brenno; Claudine von Villa Bella
• Antonio Salieri – Il Pastor fido; La Cifra; both with libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte
• Stephen Storace – The Haunted Tower

Births

• January 30 – George Augustus Kollmann, composer
• February 1 – Hippolyte André Jean Baptiste Chélard, composer (d. 1861)
• February 8 – Ludwig Wilhelm Maurer, composer (d. 1878)
• February 15 – Friedrich Fesca, composer (d. 1826)
• June 27 – Friedrich Silcher, composer (d. 1860)
• September 1 – Franz Anton Adam Stockhausen, composer
• October 18 – Giovanni Tadolini, composer
• October 24 – Ramon Carnicer y Batlle, composer (d. 1855)
• October 26 – Joseph Mayseder
• October 28 – Johann Schneider, composer
• November 13 – Martin de Ron, composer
• December 8 – John Fawcett, composer (d. 1867)
• December 14 – Maria Agata Szymanowska, composer (d. 1831)

Deaths

• January 1 – Christleib Siegmund Binder, composer
• January 2 – Franz Joseph Leonti Meyer von Schavensee, composer
• January 20 – Johann Christoph Oley, composer
• February 2 – Armand-Louis Couperin, organist and composer (b. 1727)
• May 10 – Guillaume Gommaire Kennis, composer
• June 7 – Václav Jan Kopřiva (b. 1708)
• June 14 – Johann Wilhelm Hertel, composer (b. 1727)
• July 4 – Cláudio Manuel da Costa, poer and conductor (b. 1729)
• July 15 – Jacques Duphly, composer (b. 1715)
• September 11 – Luka Sorkočević, composer (b. 1734) (suicide)
• September 12 – Franz Xaver Richter, composer (b. 1709)
• October 24 – Joaquin de Oxinaga, composer
• date unknown – Minette, actress, singer and dancer (b. 1767) (killed in Haitian race riot)