1788 in music

List of years in music (table)
... 1778 1779 1780 1781 1782 1783 1784 ... 1785 1786 1787 1788 1789 1790 1791 ... 1792 1793 1794 1795 1796 1797 1798 ...
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Events

• January 9 – The elderly Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach reviews Johann Nikolaus Forkel’s book Allgemeine Geschichte der Musik in the Hamburgischer unpartheyischer Correspondent.
• January 22 – Composer Ignaz Pleyel marries Franziska Gabrielle Ignatia Lefebvre, daughter of a tapestry maker.
• February 6 – The Kärntnertortheater in Vienna closes, after the German Opera Company disbands.
• February 12 – Antonio Salieri is appointed Imperial Royal Kapellmeister by Emperor Joseph II of Austria, in succession to Giuseppe Bonno, who is forcibly retired.
• March 6 – Domenico Cimarosa, recently invited to St Petersburg by the Empress Catherine II of Russia, premières his La felicità inaspetata, which fails to impress his new patron.
• April 29 – Première of Antonio Sacchini's "tragédie lyrique" completed after the composer's death by Jean-Baptiste Rey.
• June 25 – Publication of three string quintets (K.406, 515, 516) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is postponed for a year because of a lack of take-up of subscriptions.
• July 17 – Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf is officially dismissed from his post as Amtshauptmann of Freiwaldau, but actually continues in the position for another seven years.
• November 25 – Three weeks before his death, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach writes his last known letter, to Johann Jacob Heinrich Westphal.

Opera

• Giuseppe Cambini – Le bon pére
• Thomas Carter – The Constant Maid, or Poll of Plympton
• Luigi Cherubini – Ifigenia in Aulide
• Franz Danzi – Die Mitternachtsstunde
• Giovanni Paisiello – L'Amor Contrastato
• Antonio Sacchini - Arvire et Évélina (posthumous, finished by J.-B. Rey)
• Antonio Salieri – Axur, Re d´Ormus (libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte after Beaumarchais); Il Talismano (libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte after Goldoni)
• Joseph Weigl – Il pazzo per forza

Classical music

• Muzio Clementi – Keyboard sonata op.24/1
• Jan Ladislav Dussek – Three piano sonatas C.41–43
• Michael Haydn – Die Ährenleserin (singspiel)
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Symphonies 39 in E flat, 40 in G minor and 41 in C

Births

• February 10 – Johann Peter Pixis, composer (died 1874)
• August 20 – José Bernardo Alcedo, composer (died 1878)
• October 11 – Simon Sechter, composer (died 1867)
• date unknown – Brita Catharina Lidbeck, Swedish concert singer and member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music (died 1864)

Deaths

• January 15 – Gaetano Latilla, composer (b. 1711)
• March 29 – Charles Wesley, hymn-writer (b. 1707)
• April 12 – Carlo Antonio Campioni, composer (b. 1720)
• April 15 – Giuseppe Bonno, composer (b. 1711)
• June 28 – Johann Christoph Vogel, composer
• July 14 – Johann Gottfried Müthel, composer (b. 1728)
• December 14 – Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, composer (b. 1714)
• December 12 – Joseph Gibbs, composer (b. 1699)