1849
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3 January 1849 Le Caïd, an opéra comique by Ambroise Thomas (37) to words of Sauvage, is performed for the first time, at the Théâtre Favart, Paris.
4 January 1849 Austrian forces under Prince Windischgrätz enter Pest.
As his Hungarian army disintegrates, General Arthur Görgey issues a manifesto pledging allegiance to King (Emperor) Ferenc József.
5 January 1849 An Imperial army of Bohemians and Croatians enters Buda and Pest.
7 January 1849 Leon Escudier publishes Giuseppe Verdi’s (35) song L’abandonée in Paris. It is dedicated to Giuseppina Strepponi.
13 January 1849 Fighting between the British and Sikhs at Chillianwala, northeast of Lahore, brings inconclusive results.
22 January 1849 30,000 demonstrators meet in Florence to press the Grand Duke of Tuscany for universal male suffrage and support for the republican government in Rome.
23 January 1849 Elizabeth Blackwell receives the first medical degree awarded to an American woman, from the Medical Institution of Geneva, New York.
24 January 1849 At a large official dinner in Paris, Giacomo Meyerbeer (57) is introduced to President Louis Bonaparte.
27 January 1849 La battaglia di Legnano, a tragedia lirica by Giuseppe Verdi (35) to words of Cammarano after Méry, is performed for the first time, in Teatro Argentina, Rome, directed by the composer. It is a patriotic event with the audience festooned with flags, pins and patriotic slogans. The opera so fits the fervor of the crowd that they require the entire last act to be repeated.
28 January 1849 Censorship is reimposed in the theatres of France.
7 February 1849 Grand Duke Leopoldo II of Tuscany flees the country. A provisional revolutionary government takes power.
9 February 1849 The Roman constituent assembly proclaims the Papal States a republic. They deny the temporal power of the Pope, but grant citizenship to all church officials.
10 February 1849 Fantasie-Bilder op.64, a waltz by Johann Strauss, Jr. (23), is performed for the first time, in Dommayer’s Casino, Heitzing.
13 February 1849 Des Wanderers Lebwohl op.237 by Johann Strauss, Jr. (23) is performed for the first time, in the Sofiensaal, Vienna.
16 February 1849 Franz Liszt (37) conducts Tannhäuser in Weimar, only its second production, on the birthday of the Grand Duchess in Weimar.
21 February 1849 British forces defeat the Sikhs at the Chenab River in Gujarat.
A provisional government headed by Giuseppe Montanelli replaces Grand Duke Leopold II of Tuscany.
24 February 1849 Gustav Friedrich Held replaces Alexander Karl Hermann Braun as Prime Minister of Saxony.
A setting of Domine salvum fac by Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (67) is performed for the first time, in the Madeleine before President Louis Napoleon Bonaparte and the National Assembly.
26 February 1849 Imperial troops enter into battle with a Hungarian force at Kápolna, northeast of Pest.
A newly elected Prussian parliament meets in Berlin. It consists of an upper house elected by restricted suffrage, and a lower house chosen by universal male voting.
27 February 1849 Imperial troops defeat Hungarians at Kápolna.
28 February 1849 The first shipload of ocean-going gold rushers arrives in San Francisco.
4 March 1849 The Austrian Reichstag, now sitting at Kremsier (Kromeriz), Moravia, is dissolved by imperial order. A new constitution for the Austrian Empire is sanctioned by Emperor Franz Joseph, declaring it to be an indivisible monarchy with common administration. Istria is made a crown land.
Zachary Taylor replaces James Knox Polk as President of the United States.
5 March 1849 The Thirty-first Congress of the United States convenes in Washington. Democrats continue to control the Senate. They also win the most seats in the House of Representatives, although three seats short of a majority.
7 March 1849 The new Austrian constitution is formally decreed.
Daniel Manin becomes President of the Executive Power for Venice.
9 March 1849 Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, a komische-fantastische Oper by Otto Nicolai (38) to words of Mosenthal after Shakespeare, is performed for the first time, at the Royal Opera House, Berlin.
12 March 1849 Sikh forces surrender to the British at Rawalpindi which ends the Second Anglo-Sikh War.
At the end of the August 1848 truce with Austria, Sardinia decides to resume hostilities.
Tired of its tedious deliberations and buoyed by the return of absolutism, King Ferdinando of Naples dissolves parliament.
14 March 1849 Duke Carlo II of Parma abdicates and is succeeded by his son, Carlo III, presently in England.
16 March 1849 The provisional government of Parma declares for Sardinia and asks to be annexed. Sardinian troops occupy the country.
17 March 1849 King Willem II of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg dies in Tilburg and is succeeded by his son Willem III.
18 March 1849 Incidental music to Böhm’s Vier Wochen in Ischl, oder Der Geldausleiher in Tausend Aengsten by Albert Lortzing (47), is performed for the first time, in Vienna.
23 March 1849 Austrian forces defeat the Sardinian and other Italians at Novara, 50 km west of Milan. After the battle, King Carlo Alberto of Sardinia abdicates in favor of his son, Vittorio Emanuele, and leaves the country.
Citizens of Brescia rise in revolt. Austrian troops retreat to the castle.
24 March 1849 King Vittorio Emanuele II of Sardinia meets with Austrian Field Marshall Count Radetzky and, after making peace, returns to Turin by night to avoid angry citizens.
25 March 1849 King Vittorio Emanuele II publicly swears to uphold the constitution of Sardinia.
27 March 1849 Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi replaces Giuseppe Montanelli as head of the provisional government of Tuscany.
28 March 1849 The German National Assembly adopts a constitution for a united Germany. It features a hereditary emperor and a bicameral legislature. The Assembly also names King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia as Emperor of Germany.
29 March 1849 James Andrew Broun Ramsay, the Earl of Dalhouse, British Governor General proclaims the annexation of the Punjab by Great Britain.
30 March 1849 Austrian troops surround the city of Brescia and its rebellious citizens.
31 March 1849 Austrian forces surrounding Brescia demand the surrender of its citizens.
1 April 1849 Austrian forces enter and sack Brescia, killing unknown numbers of civilians.
Richard Wagner (35) conducts his last concert in Dresden in a performance including the Ninth Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven (†22). Michael Bukunin, a wanted Russian revolutionary, approaches Wagner afterwards and tells him that “when everything else is destroyed in the flames of the future, that work of art must be preserved, even at the cost of our lives.”
3 April 1849 A delegation from the Frankfurt Parliament offers King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia the throne of an Imperial Germany. He declines, unless it is offered to him by his peers, the princes of Germany. “I will not pick up a crown from the gutter.”
5 April 1849 Maharajah Dulleep Sing Bahadoor is forced to sign an instrument by Great Britain which deposes him and annexes the Punjab to the “Honourable East India Company.”
Austria orders its deputies removed from the German National Assembly.
6 April 1849 China grants a concession to France in Shanghai.
After Parma is evacuated by Sardinian troops, Austrian forces enter the country.
8 April 1849 Richard Wagner (35) publishes an inflammatory article, “The Revolution”, in the Volksblätter.
10 April 1849 Walter Hunt receives a US patent for the safety pin.
12 April 1849 Grand Duke Leopoldo II is returned to power in Tuscany. His reliance on Austrian arms, however, makes him decidedly unpopular.
14 April 1849 Lajos Kossuth issues the Declaration of Independence of Hungary at Debrecen. The Hungarian Diet thereupon declares the Hungarian throne vacant and names Kossuth governor. Bertalan Szemere replaces Lajos Kossuth as Prime Minister of Hungary.
Johannes Brahms (15) gives a second piano recital, in Hamburg playing music of Beethoven (†22), Thalberg (37) and himself. It earns him his first notices—favorable ones.
16 April 1849 Le prophète, a grand opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer (57) to words of Scribe and Deschamps, is performed for the first time, at the Paris Opéra. It features the first use of electric light at the Opéra, in creating the illusion of a sunrise. In the audience is Hector Berlioz (45) (who calls it “matchless magnificence”) and a very ill Frédéric Chopin (39). Over the first ten days of the production, the Opéra will take in 9,000-10,000 francs per performance, an unprecedented amount. The composer will receive from his publisher the highest amount ever paid for a score.
17 April 1849 Louis Moreau Gottschalk (19) gives his professional Paris debut in the Salle Pleyel. It is an unreserved critical and popular success. La France musicale claims that “Gottschalk is henceforth placed in the ranks of the best performers and of the most renowned composers for the piano.”
18 April 1849 Karl Ludwig Heinrich Freiherr von der Pfordten replaces Otto Camillus Hugo Graf von Bray-Steinburg as President of the Council of Ministers of Bavaria.
21 April 1849 40 people connected to socialist intellectuals are arrested in St. Petersburg and will be sent eventually to Siberia.
22 April 1849 The Hungarian forces defending Komárom, northwest of Buda, against Imperial troops are rescued by National Guardsmen.
24 April 1849 A French expeditionary force of 30,000 men lands at Civitavecchia, north of Rome, to restore the Pope.
Hungarian forces re-enter Pest after the Austrians withdraw to fortify Buda.
25 April 1849 In Montreal, Canadian Tories, protesting the Rebellion Losses Bill (granting compensation to citizens for losses in the rebellion of 1837 regardless of what side they were on) attack the carriage of Governor James Bruce, Earl of Elgin and Kincardine, with stones and eggs, and set fire to the Houses of Assembly. The day’s events cause Her Majesty’s Government to move the capital of the Province of Canada from Montreal to Toronto.
28 April 1849 King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia refuses his election as Emperor of the Germans.
30 April 1849 Confident of Prussian support, King Friedrich August of Saxony dissolves both houses of the Landtag.
At a state ball in Buckingham Palace, the Alice-Polka op.238 by Johann Strauss, Jr. (23) is performed for the first time. It was written in honor of Queen Victoria’s six-year-old daughter.
1 May 1849 The democratic class of Baden calls their members to arms for a third Baden uprising.
The Convention of Balta Liman (near Istanbul) between Russia and Turkey is agreed to. It provides for joint pacification of the revolutionary principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia.
In a meeting in Warsaw, Emperor Franz Joseph II of Austria appeals to Tsar Nikolay I for military assistance against the Hungarians. Nikolay agrees.
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens is published beginning today in London, in serial form.
2 May 1849 Ferdinand von Zschinsky replaces Gustav Friedrich Held as Prime Minister of Saxony.
3 May 1849 The citizenry of Dresden attempt to storm the city’s arsenal. Militia called out to repel them join the people. Fearing this possibility, militia commanders have not issued ammunition. Saxon troops fire on this unarmed mob who respond with stones. Robert (38) and Clara (29) Schumann return from a day in the country to find the city in revolution.
4 May 1849 During the night, barricades appear in Dresden. Richard Wagner (35) attempts to win the troops over by appealing to their nationalistic sensibilities in the face of a possible Prussian invasion. The royal cabinet, fearful that the King might accede to demands, induces His Royal Highness to flee to his summer palace. The revolutionaries set up a provisional government which swears to uphold the Frankfurt constitution.
Austrian forces begin the bombardment of Fort Malghera on the mainland, protecting Venice.
A revolutionary group in Russia, the Petrashevists (whose number includes Fyodor Dostoyevsky), are all arrested by police and imprisoned in Sts. Peter and Paul Fortress.
The nomination of Giacomo Meyerbeer (57) as a Commander of the Legion of Honor is made public.
5 May 1849 As revolutionary guards come to the Schumann home in Dresden intent on impressing Robert (38) into their cause, Clara (29), seven months pregnant, convinces them that he is not there. In actuality he is at that moment fleeing through the garden door with seven-year-old Marie. Later, Robert, Clara and Marie leave the younger children in the care of servants and take a train to Mügeln, walk to Donha and take refuge with a friend in Maxen. In the evening, Schumann composes his Frühlingslied op.79/18.
During the Dresden revolt, Richard Wagner (35) mans the observation post in the tower of the Kreuzkirche and, under constant fire from Prussian troops, relays messages to the rebels below.
Valentin Alkan (35) gives his last concert for 25 years, in Paris.
6 May 1849 Prussian and Saxon troops begin their assault on Dresden. Richard Wagner (35) sees his opera house in flames, apparently set by revolutionaries. “It was an ugly building anyway.”
7 May 1849 03:00 Clara Schumann (29), seven months pregnant, travels from Maxen to Dresden (partly on foot) and arrives in the middle of an artillery barrage. She retrieves her three younger children and returns them safely to Maxen by 11:00. Robert (38) can not accompany her for fear of being impressed into the revolution.
The Austrian Imperial court returns to Vienna from Olmütz.
8 May 1849 August Röckel is captured by Saxon troops in Dresden. On his person is a letter from his friend Richard Wagner (35) which clearly implicates Wagner in revolutionary activities.
9 May 1849 In the face of growing Prussian intervention, the Dresden revolutionaries call a retreat, hoping to regroup in Chemnitz or Freiburg. While driving back to Dresden from Freiburg where he went to summon reinforcements, Richard Wagner (35) encounters rebels marching away from the city. Some rebel leaders will be captured in Chemnitz but through a stroke of luck, Wagner escapes. Royal troops execute 26 students and many rebels are thrown out of third and fourth-floor windows.
10 May 1849 Hokusai dies in Edo (Tokyo) at the age of 88.
The Schumann family returns to Dresden.
The Seven Lamps of Architecture by John Ruskin is published.
A riot breaks out at the Astor Place Opera House in New York during a performance by a British actor named MacReady. The crowds dislike the dress requirements for admittance and the derogatory public statements about the United States made by MacReady. Theatre windows are broken by flying projectiles. Troops summoned open fire on the rioters killing 22 and injuring 56.
11 May 1849 The Schumann family moves into the small village of Kreischa.
Garibaldi enters Rome.
After a cathedral choir concert, Otto Nicolai suffers a stroke and dies in Berlin, aged 38 years, eleven months and two days. He never learns of his election as a member of the Royal Academy of Arts earlier in the day.
13 May 1849 Fugitive Richard Wagner (35) arrives in Weimar seeking help from Franz Liszt (37). He is told that Liszt is not there.
A “people’s congress” meets in Baden precipitating a mutiny by the army against the Grand Duke.
Elections are held for the National Assembly in France. Conservatives win a majority of seats.
14 May 1849 Prussia orders its deputies removed from the German National Assembly.
A Revolutionary Executive Committee for Baden is established in Karlsruhe and Rastatt under Chairman Lorenz Brentano.
Franz Liszt (37) arrives at his home in Weimar and finds Richard Wagner (35). He decides to hide Wagner from the authorities. Liszt then organizes a false identity and an escape to Switzerland and Paris. Before he leaves, Wagner is able to hear Liszt conduct a rehearsal of Tannhäuser, scheduled to be performed 20 May. Wagner will remember, “I was astounded to recognize in him my second self...”
15 May 1849 Prussia declares war on the Baden revolutionaries.
Neapolitan royal troops enter Palermo, thus ending the rebellion.
16 May 1849 A warrant for the arrest of Richard Wagner (35) is issued in Dresden.
The City of New York opens a hospital above a tavern to try to deal with the increasing number of cholera deaths. 2,500 people will die by the end of July.
17 May 1849 Representatives of Bavaria, Hanover, Prussia, Saxony and Württemberg meet to discuss plans to effect a conservative German union.
18 May 1849 Duke Carlo III returns to Parma from England for the first time since assuming the throne. He will leave in two days.
Hector Berlioz (45) prints an article by Franz Liszt (37) in the Journal des débats praising Richard Wagner (35) and Tannhäuser.
Franz Liszt (37) returns from Karlsruhe to his home in Weimar and learns that a warrant has been issued for Richard Wagner (35). At night he takes Wagner out of his home and places him in the home of Eduard Genast, the manager of the Weimar theatre. Genast goes to minister Bernhard von Watzdorf who tells him that the warrant has not yet been delivered, therefore there is time to get Wagner away. Liszt sends Wagner to the village of Magdala with money borrowed from Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein. Two hours later, the warrant arrives from Dresden.
19 May 1849 Richard Wagner (35) reaches Magdala with 60 thalers, a false identity and a scheme whereby he is to impersonate a “financial expert” sent to administer an estate near Magdala. He will be hidden on the estate for three days, during which time he consults with other revolutionaries.
The Neue Rheinische Zeitung is suppressed by the Prussian government, and its editor, Karl Marx, is exiled.
21 May 1849 Emperor Franz Joseph II and Tsar Nikolay I meet in Warsaw. Russia promises Austria 140,000 men for use against Hungary.
After a costly frontal assault, Hungarians capture Buda Castle from the Austrians.
22 May 1849 Minna Wagner arrives at Magdala where Richard (36) is hiding.
24 May 1849 After five days of hiding in Magdala, Richard Wagner (36) walks to Jena and the home of Prof. Oskar Wolf.
25 May 1849 Austrian troops enter Florence and restore the power of Grand Duke Leopoldo of Tuscany. He will return 28 July.
After three weeks of withstanding furious bombardment, Venetians abandon Fort Malghera and retreat to Venice, blowing up a large part of the railroad bridge, the only connection to the mainland.
Leaving his wife in Jena, Richard Wagner (36) departs the shelter of Franz Liszt (37) and under an assumed name, makes for Paris by way of Switzerland.
Rolands Knappen, oder Das ersehnte Glück, a komische-romantische Zauberoper by Albert Lortzing (47) to words of the composer and Düringer after Masäus, is performed for the first time, in Leipzig Stadttheater. It is a great success.
26 May 1849 King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, King Friedrich August II of Saxony, and King Ernst August of Hannover pledge themselves to a German union without Austria. They call themselves the Dreikönigsbund.
28 May 1849 Richard Wagner (36) boards a steamer at Lindau and crosses Lake Constance into Switzerland.
A constitution for the Dreikönigsbund is issued, the Unionsverfassung.
29 May 1849 French emissary Ferdinand de Lesseps sends an ultimatum to the Roman Assembly offering the protection of the French Republic. The Assembly agrees to this, provided that the French army does not march through the city, but the French recall de Lesseps.
30 May 1849 Prussia adopts a three-class suffrage.
Richard Wagner (36) departs Zürich for Paris.
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers by Henry David Thoreau is published in Boston.
31 May 1849 The Venetian Assembly votes to continue resistance to the Austrians.
The last meeting of the German Diet takes place in Frankfurt.
2 June 1849 Richard Wagner (36) reaches Paris.
French forces attack furiously into the suburbs of Rome.
3 June 1849 Elections in Baden choose a constitutional assembly.
5 June 1849 A liberal constitution is promulgated in Denmark. It calls for a limited monarchy and civil liberties.
6 June 1849 The German Parliament (those who are left) meet henceforth in Stuttgart to get out of Prussian interference.
9 June 1849 A Few Words on Cathedral Music and the Musical System of the Church, with a Plan of Reform by Samuel Sebastian Wesley (38) is published in London.
10 June 1849 Frédéric Kalkbrenner dies at Enghien-les-Bains in the midst of a cholera epidemic, aged 63 years and approximately seven months.
11 June 1849 The three kings of the Dreikönigsbund (Prussia, Saxony, Hanover) call on all German states to participate in elections for a German parliament to ratify the Unionsverfassung announced 28 May.
12 June 1849 The US-owned Panama Railroad Company gains a concession from Colombia to build a railroad across Panama. It will be completed in 1855.
13 June 1849 14,000 leftists march on the Elysées Palace in Paris. They are attacked by cavalry who disperse them. In the evening, the National Assembly declares a state of siege at the request of President Louis Bonaparte.
15 June 1849 Prussian troops capture Mannheim
18 June 1849 Württemberg troops enter the chamber of the German Parliament in Stuttgart and those deputies remaining run away.
António Bernardo da Costa Cabral, conde de Tomar replaces João Carlos Gregório Domingues Vicente Francisco de Saldanha Oliveira e Daun, duque, marques e conde de Saldanha as Prime Minister of Portugal.
21 June 1849 Frédéric Chopin (39), in Paris, suffers two hemorrhages.
Prussian troops defeat revolutionary forces at Waghausel.
25 June 1849 The revolutionary army crowds inside the walls of its last stronghold, Rastatt, 10 km north of Baden-Baden.
26 June 1849 Lorenz Brentano, dictator of Baden, resigns his post and leaves for Switzerland.
30 June 1849 Rome surrenders to the besieging French.
Great Britain creates the Bight of Biafra Protectorate.
1 July 1849 General Mieroslawski, the commander-in-chief of the republican armies in Baden, resigns feeling the cause is lost.
Friedrich Adolf Klüber becomes Prime Minister of the grand ducal government in Baden.
2 July 1849 Prussian troops surround the revolutionary army in Rastatt.
Their cause hopeless, Giuseppe Garibaldi leads his 4,500 men out of Rome into the Apennines.
3 July 1849 As French troops enter Rome, Giuseppe Garibaldi begins his retreat across Italy.
8 July 1849 The revolutionary government of Hungary evacuates Pest, moving first to Szeged.
10 July 1849 A cease-fire is arranged between Denmark and Prussia.
14 July 1849 The temporal power of the Pope is reestablished in Rome.
Hungarian leader Lajos Kossuth signs a pact with two Romanian leaders. He grants Romanians in Hungary and Transylvania ethnic rights in return for the raising of a Romanian army to help fight the Russians.
Giuseppe Verdi (35) writes from Paris, “Force still rules the world. And justice? What use is it against bayonets? All we can do is weep over our wrongs, and curse the authors of so many misfortunes.”
16 July 1849 A sixth child, Ferdinand, is born to Clara (29) and Robert (39) Schumann.
17 July 1849 Samuel Sebastian Wesley (38) applies for the position of organist at Winchester Cathedral.
23 July 1849 The last stronghold of German democratic-revolutionaries, Rastatt, falls to Prussian troops. Most of the leftist army will be executed by the Prussians. This essentially ends the German revolution.
The Venetian government issues food ration cards.
28 July 1849 Grand Duke Leopoldo of Tuscany returns to Florence to resume his reign.
The Hungarian Diet grants wide-ranging ethnic and religious rights to minorities.
29 July 1849 Austrian forces begin a long range bombardment of Venice. Over the next three weeks, 25,000 missiles hit the city, including pilotless balloons--the first air raids in history.
31 July 1849 The remnants of Giuseppe Garibaldi’s army, after a month of fighting Austrian troops in the Apennines, cross into San Marino and disband.
The Hungarian army is defeated at Segesvar.
1 August 1849 David Livingstone and his party become the first Europeans to see Lake Ngami (Botswana). Having come from the southeast, they are also the first Europeans to cross any part of the Kalahari Desert.
2 August 1849 Egyptian ruler Mohammed Ali dies in Cairo and is succeeded by his granson Abbas.
3 August 1849 Russian GI Nevelskoy sails the straits between Sakhalin and mainland Asia, thus proving Sakhalin to be an island.
4 August 1849 Giacomo Meyerbeer (57) arrives back in Berlin from Paris after producing Le prophète. He could have arrived yesterday but did not want to enter the city on a Friday.
5 August 1849 France extends a protectorate over Riviéres du Sud (Guinea).
6 August 1849 The Venetian Assembly grants Daniel Manin power to parley with the Austrians.
The Peace of Milan is agreed to by Austria and Sardinia. Sardinia is not required to give up its constitution.
8 August 1849 Austrian troops convincingly defeat the Hungarians at Temesvár (Timisoara, Romania), near Arad.
9 August 1849 Ludwika Jedrzejewicz arrives in Paris to nurse her brother, Frédéric Chopin (39), through his final illness.
11 August 1849 Lajos Kossuth resigns as Chairman of the Committee of Defense, thus leaving all Hungarian power in the hands of General Arthur Görgey. Kossuth heads for the southern border.
13 August 1849 General Görgey surrenders his 35,000 man Hungarian army to the Russians on the field of Világos, near Arad. The Russians pardon Görgey but hand the rest of the army over to the Austrians. Kossuth calls Görgey a traitor.
14 August 1849 The Duchies of Modena and Reggio are restored under Duke Francesco V.
17 August 1849 Lajos Kossuth and his cabinet, along with part of the Hungarian army, meet for the last time on Hungarian soil. Kossuth buries the Crown of St. Stephen and they all march into exile, entering Ottoman territory at Orsova (Orsova, Romania).
19 August 1849 With only four days of food left, Venetian President Daniel Manin asks the Austrians for surrender terms.
21 August 1849 Samuel Sebastian Wesley (39) is appointed organist at Winchester Cathedral.
22 August 1849 João Maria Ferreira do Amaral, governor of the Portuguese colony of Macao, is killed by eight Chinese nationalists led by Shen Zhiliang. Amaral’s head and arm are carried off for ransom. They will be returned in a pig basket.
23 August 1849 Venice surrenders to the Austrians.
Duke Carlo III returns to Parma permanently and institutes repressive measures backed by Austrian troops.
24 August 1849 Venetian President Daniel Manin and his family flee the city aboard a French ship as Count Radetzky enters the city with his Austrian troops.
25 August 1849 Licht, mehr Licht for chorus by Franz Liszt (37) to words of Schober is performed for the first time, in Weimar, directed by the composer.
27 August 1849 Bedrich Smetana (25) marries his childhood sweetheart, Katerina Kolárová, daughter of a tax commissioner, at the Church of St. Stephen, Prague.
28 August 1849 Tasso: lamento e trionfo, a symphonic poem by Franz Liszt (37), is performed for the first time, in Weimar, directed by the composer along with the Festmarsch zur Goethejubiläumsfeier. It is all part of celebrations surrounding the centennial of Goethe’s birth, during which he also conducts Beethoven’s (†22) Symphony no.9 and parts of Robert Schumann’s (39) Faust.
29 August 1849 On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Goethe’s birth, the final section of Robert Schumann’s (39) Scenes from Goethe’s Faust is performed publicly for the first time, simultaneously in Dresden, Weimar and Leipzig. The composer conducts in Dresden.
30 August 1849 Dr. Jean Cruveilher, France’s foremost authority on tuberculosis, calls in two other specialists and all three forbid Frédéric Chopin’s (39) planned trip to Nice.
9 September 1849 On the advice of his doctor, Frédéric Chopin (39) moves to a new apartment in Paris on the Place Vendôme.
15 September 1849 A setting of the Requiem in d minor for soloists, chorus, three trombones, strings and organ by Anton Bruckner (25) is performed for the first time, at St. Florian.
17 September 1849 Aeols-Töne op.68, a waltz by Johann Strauss (23), is performed for the first time, at the Wasserglacis, Vienna.
25 September 1849 Josef Strauss finds the body of his father, Johann Strauss Sr., dead of scarlet fever, naked on the floor of his lodgings which he shared with his mistress Emilie Trampusch. She has taken all his clothes, bedding and as much of their belongings as she can carry.
27 September 1849 A funeral for Johann Strauss, Sr. is held at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna. His mortal remains are laid to rest at Döbling. The total of all in the cathedral and en route to the cemetery number 100,000 people, one-fifth of the city’s population.
1 October 1849 After withstanding a siege of six weeks and securing favorable terms, General György Klapka leads the last Hungarian force in the field out of Komarom.
La fée aux roses, an opéra comique by Fromental Halévy (50) to words of Scribe and Saint-Georges, is performed for the first time, at the Théâtre Favart, Paris. It enjoys a good, if not unqualified, success.
5 October 1849 Samuel Sebastian Wesley (39) enters upon duties as organist of Winchester Cathedral.
6 October 1849 Thirteen Hungarian generals are executed by the Austrians at Arad. In Pest, the former Hungarian Prime Minister, Lajos Batthyany, is shot. In all, 126 Hungarians will be executed. The brutality of the Austrian reprisals causes revulsion throughout the world.
7 October 1849 Johann Strauss, Jr. (23) conducts his father’s orchestra for the first time, in the Kolonadensaal of the Volksgarten, Vienna.
Edgar Allen Poe dies in Baltimore at the age of 40.
12 October 1849 At the suggestion of Alexander Jelowicki, an acquaintance from Warsaw, Frédéric Chopin (39) receives the Last Rights of the Roman Catholic Church, in his rooms at the Place Vendôme, Paris.
13 October 1849 Giuseppe Verdi (36) and Antonio Barezzi arrive in Rome where they are promptly quarantined for two weeks due to an outbreak of cholera. They are trying to get to Naples to produce Luisa Miller.
16 October 1849 On his deathbed, Frédéric Chopin (39) orders that all his unfinished manuscripts be burned, that his notes for a proposed Method be turned over to Charles-Valentin Alkan (35), and that the Requiem of Mozart (†57) be performed at the funeral.
Royal Navy vessels seize Tigre Island off the Pacific coast of Honduras as part of a campaign to pressure Central American governments to grant canal rights to Britain.
17 October 1849 02:00 Frédéric François Chopin dies at 12 Place Vendôme, Paris probably of tuberculosis, aged 39 years, seven months and 16 days. He is attended by his sister, Ludwika, Princess Marcelina Czartoryska, Solange Dudevant (George Sand’s daughter), Thomas Albrecht and his student Adolphe Gutmann.
19 October 1849 Serafín María de Soto y Abacu, conde de Cleonard replaces Ramón María Narváez y Campos, duque de Valencia as Prime Minister of Spain.
An autopsy is performed on the body of Frédéric Chopin. His heart is removed to be transported to its resting place in the Church of the Holy Cross in Warsaw.
20 October 1849 Ramón María Narváez y Campos, duque de Valencia replaces Serafín María de Soto y Abacu, conde de Cleonard as Prime Minister of Spain.
24 October 1849 Croatia and Transylvania are separated from Hungary.
27 October 1849 The Bach (†99) Society, founded by Sterndale Bennett, meets for the first time at Bennett’s house in Russell Place, London.
Konstantinos Michail Kanaris replaces Georgios Andreou Koundouriotis as Prime Minister of Greece.
Giuseppe Verdi (36) and Antonio Barezzi arrive in Naples.
28 October 1849 Johannes von Schlayer replaces Friedrich von Römer as Prime Minister of Württemberg.
30 October 1849 A funeral for Frédéric Chopin takes place in the Madeleine attended by 3,000 people. A special dispensation is received from the Archbishop to allow women to sing in the Madeleine in order that Mozart’s (†57) Requiem may be performed. There is no elegy. Pallbearers include Giacomo Meyerbeer (58) and Eugène Delacroix. Chopin’s heart has been removed and transported in a funeral urn to the Church of the Holy Cross, Warsaw, while the rest of his mortal remains are laid to rest in the Père-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris before 4,000 people who walk the five kilometers from the church.
31 October 1849 Alphonse Henri, Comte d’Hautpoul replaces Camille Odilon Barrot as Prime Minister of France.
1 November 1849 Johann Rudolf Thorbecke replaces Jacob Matthaeus de Kempanaer and Dirk Donker Curtius as chief minister of the Netherlands.
4 November 1849 Richard Wagner (36) completes “The Artwork of the Future” in Zürich.
16 November 1849 Fyodor Dostoyevsky is sentenced to death in St. Petersburg for being part of the Petroshevist society.
17 November 1849 Robert Schumann (39) receives a proposal from Ferdinand Hiller that he succeed Hiller as municipal director at Düsseldorf.
18 November 1849 The Duchy of Serbia is separated from Hungary by Emperor Franz Joseph II.
19 November 1849 The Symphony no.4 “Tragic” of Franz Schubert is performed publicly for the first time, in the Buchhändlerbörse, Leipzig on the 21st anniversary of the composer’s death.
22 November 1849 The Cape Colony forbids the landing of convicts.
25 November 1849 Künstler-Quadrille op.71 by Johann Strauss (24) is performed for the first time, in the Redoutensaal, Vienna.
28 November 1849 Scherz-Polka op.72 by Johann Strauss (24) is performed for the first time, in the Sperl Ballroom, Vienna.
2 December 1849 Georges Bizet (11) is awarded the First Prize in Solfège at the Paris Conservatoire.
3 December 1849 Stephen Foster (23) signs a contract with the New York music publisher Firth, Pond & Co. thus beginning his professional career.
7 December 1849 The Principalities of Hohenzollern-Hechingen and Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen give up their sovereignty to Prussia, effective 12 March 1850.
Alyeksandr Borodin (16) receives his first review, a favorable one in Northern Bee, on two piano pieces: Fantasia per il piano sopra un motivo de J.N. Hummel and Le Courant.
8 December 1849 Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia are made Austrian Crown Lands.
Giuseppe Verdi’s (36) melodramma tragico Luisa Miller, to words of Cammarano after Schiller, is performed for the first time, in Teatro San Carlo, Naples, directed by the composer. It is successful, despite numerous difficulties during rehearsals.
17 December 1849 In their London shop, Thomas and William Bowler sell the first hat which they invented and which bears their name. It is designed to stay on the head when tangling with branches while riding or shooting.
18 December 1849 American astronomer William Bond takes the first photograph of the Moon through a telescope.
24 December 1849 Antonios Georgiou Kriezis replaces Konstantinos Michail Kanaris as Prime Minister of Greece.
28 December 1849 Paris tailor Jean-Baptiste Jolly-Bellin accidentally spills camphene on clothing belonging to his wife. He notices that the stained area is cleaner than the rest. Shortly, he opens the first dry cleaning business.
30 December 1849 Austria is divided into Upper Austria and Lower Austria.
©2004-2012 Paul Scharfenberger
10 July 2012
Last Updated (Tuesday, 10 July 2012 05:01)