1776 in music

Events

• September 24 – The Bolshoi Theatre Company hosts its first annual opera season, with the opening of the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in St Petersburg.
• Giovanni Paisiello is invited to the court of Catherine the Great, where he will stay for eight years.
• Court Theatre in Stockholm built by King Gustav III of Sweden

  Popular music

• Psalms and Hymns for Public and Private Worship by Augustus Montague Toplady

  Opera

• Gaetano Marinelli – Il Barone di Sardafritta
• Giovanni Paisiello – Il finto spettro
• Ignaz Pleyel – Die Fee Urgele
• Antonio Tozzi – Le Due Gemelli
• Tommaso Traetta – Germondo

  Classical music

• Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
• *6 Keyboard Trios, Wq.89
• *3 Keyboard Trios, Wq.90
• Johann Christian Bach – Die Amerikanerin
• Luigi Boccherini – 6 String Quintets, G.277-282
• Felice Giardini – String Quartet in E-flat major
• François Joseph Gossec – Symphonie de chasse; Symphonie en ré
• Johann Wilhelm Hässler – 6 Keyboard Sonatas
• James Hook – The Ascension
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Haffner Serenade, K.250
• Juliane Reichardt – An den Mond
• Carl Stamitz – 6 Quartets, Op. 14
• Daniel Gottlob Türk – 6 Keyboard Sonatas, Sammlung 1

  Methods and theory writings

• Charles Burney – A General History of Music, vol. 1

  Births

• January 24 – Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, author and composer
• February 18 – John Parry, composer
• February 21 – Vincenzo Lavigna, composer
• April 8 – Thaddaus Weigl, composer
• May 10 – George Thomas Smart, composer
• May 12 – Juan Bros y Bertomel, composer
• May 13 – Charles Ots and Rodrigo Ferreira da Costa, composers
• June 1 – John George Schetky, composer
• August 4 – Wenzel Sedlak, composer
• August 15 – Ignaz Xaver von Seyfried, composer
• August 16 – Philipp Jakob Riotte, composer
• August 19 – Johan Peter Strömberg, dancer and theatre director
• December 6 – Paul Friedrich Struck, composer

  Deaths

• February 13 – Luis Misón, composer, 50
• April 22 – Johann Adolph Scheibe, music theorist, 67
• May 6 – James Kent, composer, 76
• June 10 – Leopold Widhalm, luthier, 53
• November 29 – Zanetta Farussi, opera singer, 69
• date unknown
• *Thomas Capell, organist
• *Josep Carcoler, composer, 78
• *Aaron Williams, composer, 45.
• probable – Matteo Capranica, composer