1840 in music

Events

• February 11 – Gaetano Donizetti's opera La Fille du Regiment premieres in Paris.
• June 9 – Franz Liszt gives the first piano recital, in London's Hanover Square Rooms.
• Robert Schumann's "year of song", in which he writes the two Liederkreis, Frauenliebe und -leben and Dichterliebe. He also marries Clara Wieck.
• The first harmonium is built.
• Schindler's biography of Ludwig van Beethoven is published.
• Michele Carafa becomes Professor of Counterpoint at the Paris Conservatoire.
• Édouard Batiste and François Bazin share the Prix de Rome.

Popular music

• Henry Russell (music) & Eliza Cook (lyrics) – "The Old Arm Chair"
• Robert Lucas de Pearsall – "Lay a garland"

Classical music

• Felix Mendelssohn – Symphony No. 2 in B Flat Major, "Lobgesang"
• Louis Spohr – Symphony no 6 in G major, Op. 116 "Historical"

Opera

• Gaetano Donizetti – "La Favorite" and La Fille du Régiment (The Daughter of the Regiment)
• Albert Lortzing – Hans Sachs
• Temistocle Solera – Ildegonda
• Giuseppe Verdi – Un giorno di regno

Births

• January 18 – Ernst Rudorff, composer and music teacher (d. 1918)
• February 2 – Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray, pianist and composer (d. 1910)
• February 12 – Philippe Decker, conductor and composer (d. 1881)
• March 8 – Franco Faccio, conductor and composer (d. 1891)
• April 12 – Franz Xaver Haberl, musicologist (d. 1910)
• May 7 – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, composer (d. 1893)
• May 9 – Blanche d'Antigny, singer and actress (d. 1874)
• August 1 – Franz Simandl, double-bassist and teacher (d. 1912)
• August 28 – Ira D. Sankey, gospel singer and composer (d. 1908)
• September 14 – George Whiting, composer (d. 1923)
• September 30 – Johan Svendsen, violinist, conductor and composer (d. 1911)
• October 18 – Roberto Stagno, operatic tenor (d. 1897)
• November – Célestine Marié, operatic mezzo-soprano, the original Carmen (d. 1905)
• December 7 – Hermann Goetz, composer (d. 1876)
• December 17 – C. F. E. Horneman, composer (d. 1906)

Deaths

• March 20 – Anton Friedrich Justus Thibaut, lawyer and musician, 68
• May 1 – Giuditta Grisi, operatic mezzo-soprano, 34
• May 10 – Catterino Cavos, organist, conductor and composer, 64
• May 25 – Nikolai Lavrov, operatic baritone, 37
• May 27 – Niccolò Paganini, violinist and composer, 57
• June 5 - William Dance, pianist and violinist, 84
• June 16 – Joseph Kreutzer, violinist, conductor and composer, 49
• November 19 – Johann Michael Vogl, singer and composer, 72)