1787 in music

Events

• February 1 – A posthumous performance of Antonio Sacchini's Œdipe à Colone at the Paris Opéra results in the previously unsuccessful opera becoming one of the most popular pieces in the repertoire for several decades.
• August 10 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's light work, Eine kleine Nachtmusik, written as a distraction from the composition of his opera Don Giovanni, is performed at an evening entertainment in Vienna.
• December – Angelo Tarchi is appointed music director and composer at the King's Theatre in London.
• Luigi Boccherini becomes court composer in Berlin.
• Ludwig van Beethoven goes to Vienna, where he meets Mozart, but his mother's death forces him to return to Bonn.
• Luigi Cherubini settles in Paris.

Publications

• Scots Musical Museum, vol. 1

Published popular music

• Robert Burns – "The Battle of Sherramuir" (to a traditional tune)

Classical music

• Muzio Clementi – Two Symphonies, Op. 18
• Giuseppe Gherardeschi – Sonata for Organ "In the Guise of a Military Band..."
• Joseph Haydn
  • The Seven Last Words of Christ
  • Symphony No. 88 in G
• Leopold Kozeluch - Three Symphonies, Op. 22
• Joseph Martin Kraus – Symphony in E minor
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
  • Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
  • String Quintet in G minor
• Philip Phile – Violin Concerto (lost)

Opera

• Samuel Arnold – Inkle and Yarico (libretto by George Colman the Younger)
• Antoine Ballant – Dobrodetel'nïy volshebnik
• Giuseppe Gazzaniga – Don Giovanni
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Don Giovanni (first performed in Prague in the Estates Theatre, libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte)
• Antonio Salieri – Tarare (libretto by Beaumarchais)
• Vicente Martín y Soler – L'arbore di Diana

Births

• February 13 – James P. Carrell, singing teacher and composer (d. 1854)
• February 24 – Christian Frederik Barth, oboist and composer (d. 1861)
• August 15 – Alexander Aliabiev, composer (d. 1851)
• November 17 – Michele Carafa, composer (d. 1872)
• November 25 – Franz Xaver Gruber, organist and composer of "Silent Night" (d. 1863)
• December 4 – Johan Fredrik Berwald, violinist, conductor and composer (d. 1861)
• date unknown - Catharina Torenberg, violinist (d. 1866)

Deaths

• February 21 – Antonio Rodríguez de Hita, composer (b. 1722)
• March 30 – Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia, musician, composer and music collector (b. 1723)
• May 28 – Leopold Mozart, violinist, music teacher and composer (b. 1719)
• June – Ignazio Fiorillo, opera composer (b. 1715)
• June 20 – Carl Friedrich Abel, viola da gamba player and composer (b. 1723)
• July 27 - Mary Linley, singer (b. 1758)
• August 5 – François Francoeur, violinist and composer (b. 1698)
• November 15 – Christoph Willibald Gluck, composer (b. 1714)
• November 23 – Anton Schweitzer, opera composer (b. 1735)
• December 9 – Bernhard Joachim Hagen, composer, violinist and lutenist (b. 1720)
• date unknown - Edward Harwood (of Darwen), hymn-writer (b. 1707)