1728 in music

Events

• 26 March – Johann Sebastian Bach revives his St John Passion with some textual and instrumentational changes.
• Giuseppe Tartini opens a school for violinists in Padua.
• Johann Georg Pisendel begins studying composition under Johann David Heinichen.
• Domenico Scarlatti returns to Rome, where he meets his first wife.
• Johann Joachim Quantz visits Berlin and performs in the presence of the Crown Prince of Prussia, who insists on taking lessons from him.
• Deafness forces Johann Mattheson to retire from his post as musical director of Hamburg Cathedral.
• In music theory, the circle of fifths is described by Johann David Heinichen, in his 1728 treatise Der Generalbass in der Composition; the first such description in Western European literature

  Classical music

• Johann Sebastian Bach – Partita in D major, BWV 828
• Jean Francois Dandrieu – Pieces de Clavecin, Book 2
• Giovanni Antonio Guido – Scherzi armonici sopra le quattro staggioni dell'anno, Op. 3
• Jean-Marie Leclair – 12 Violin Sonatas, Op. 2
• Vincent Lübeck – Clavier Übung for harpsichord
• Michel Pignolet de Montéclair – Morte di Lucretia
• Jean-Philippe Rameau – Cantates Françaises
• Thomas Roseingrave – Voluntarys and Fugues
• Giuseppe Tartini – 6 Violin Concertos, Op. 1
• Georg Philipp Telemann
• *Der getreue Music-Meister Hamburg: .
• **Das Frauenzimmer verstimmt sich immer, song for voice and basso continuo, TWV 25:37, lection 5
• **Ich kann lachen, weinen, scherzen, for soprano and basso continuo, TWV 20:15, lections 19–20.
• **Intrada, nebst burlesquer Suite for two violins unaccompanied, TWV 40:108
• **Säume nicht geliebte Schöne, song for voice and basso continuo), TWV 25:38, lection 21

  Opera

• Bartolomeo Cordans – Ormisda
• Geminiano Giacomelli – Gianguir
• George Frideric Handel
• *Siroe, re di Persia, HWV 24
• *Tolomeo, re di Egitto
• Leonardo Leo
• *Catone in Utica
• *La pastorella commattuta
• Johann Christoph Pepusch – The Beggar's Opera
• Leonardo Vinci
• *Catone in Utica
• *Didone Abandonnata
• *Medo

  Musical theater

• The Beggar's Opera opened at Lincoln's Inn Fields on January 29 and ran for 62 performances

  Births

• January 16 – Niccolò Piccinni, composer of over 100 operas
• January 17 – Johann Gottfried Müthel, keyboard virtuoso and composer
• September 21 – Louis Emmanuel Eadin, composer
• December 9 – Pietro Alessandro Guglielmi, composer
• December 21 – Hermann Raupach, composer
• December 25 – Johann Adam Hiller, composer

  Deaths

• February 12 – Agostino Steffani, composer and diplomat
• August 15 – Marin Marais, composer and bass-viol player
• October 8 – Anne Danican Philidor, composer and founder of the Concert Spirituel
• November 19 – Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen, employer of Johann Sebastian Bach
• probable – Gaetano Greco, composer