1872
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1 January 1872 The metric system becomes mandatory in Germany.
2 January 1872 The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music by Friedrich Nietzsche is published in Leipzig.
6 January 1872 Early afternoon. Alyeksandr Nikolayevich Skryabin is born in Moscow, the only child of aristocratic parents, Nikolay Alyeksandrovich Skryabin, a lawyer, and Lyubov Petrovna Shchetinina, a pianist. Lyubov Petrovna gives birth on Christmas Day (according to the Russian calendar) after a four-day journey by train from Saratov, a distance of some 725 km. She is so seriously ill from the cold that she must be carried to the bedroom at the house of her in-laws.
Demetrios Georgiou Voulgaris replaces Thrasivoulos Andreou Zaimis as Prime Minister of Greece.
9 January 1872 Le Rouet d’Omphale op.31 for orchestra by Camille Saint-Saëns (36) is performed for the first time, by the Société National de Musique, Paris.
10 January 1872 The Praise of Music for double chorus by Samuel Sebastian Wesley (61) to words of Oliphant, is performed for the first time, in Royal Albert Hall, London. It was composed at the request of the conductor, Charles Gounod (53).
15 January 1872 Le Roi Carotte, an opéra-bouffe-féerie by Jacques Offenbach (52) to words of Sardou after Hoffmann, is performed for the first time, at the Gaité, Paris. It is a big success.
18 January 1872 Fantasio, an opéra-comique by Jacques Offenbach (52) to words of de Musset, is performed for the first time, at the Opéra-Comique, Paris.
27 January 1872 Two songs by Johannes Brahms (38) are performed for the first time, in Vienna: Blinde Kuh op.58/1 to Italian words translated by Kopisch, and Während des Regens op.58/2 to words of Kopisch.
1 February 1872 An executive committee is formed to organize the Bayreuth Festival. Richard Wagner (58) buys land near the Bayreuth Hofgarten. Here his home Villa Wahnfried will be built.
César Franck (49) enters upon duties as Professor of Organ at the Paris Conservatoire.
2 February 1872 The Wedding Chorus from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s (31) unperformed opera Oprichnik is performed for the first time, in Moscow. See 24 April 1874.
Beata, an operetta by Stanislaw Moniuszko (52) to words of Checinski, is performed for the first time, in Warsaw.
The Netherlands cedes its Gold Coast possessions to Great Britain in return for a free hand in Sumatra.
8 February 1872 Richard Southwell Bourke, Earl of Mayo, Viceroy of India, is stabbed to death by Sher Ali, a Pathan, while visiting Port Blair in the Andaman Islands.
Giuseppe Verdi’s (58) opera Aida is performed for the first time in Europe, at Teatro alla Scala, Milan. During the course of the evening, the composer is called out 32 times. Reviews are mixed.
9 February 1872 Sir John Strachey is named acting Viceroy of India.
15 February 1872 The Correspondenica teatral in Valladolid contains the first extant notice of a concert by Isaac Albéniz (11). “Words fail us in praising such mastery, such feeling, such perfection...he will be one of the glories of Spanish art.” However, this is not his first performance.
16 February 1872 Epithalam zu Eduard Reményi’s Vermählungsfeier for violin and piano by Franz Liszt (60) is performed for the first time. It was composed for Reményi’s wedding on 10 February but he does not actually perform it until today.
17 February 1872 The second version of Romeo and Juliet, a fantasy-overture by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (31), is performed for the first time, in St. Petersburg. See 16 March 1870 and 1 May 1886.
The finale to Act I of Boris Godunov, an opera by Modest Musorgsky (32) to his own words after Pushkin and Karamazin, is performed for the first time, by the Russian Musical Society, St. Petersburg. The audience is encouraging enough for him to continue work. See 8 February 1874.
21 February 1872 Thérèse de Chorier d’Indy dies. She has left her not inconsiderable wealth to her grandson, Vincent d’Indy (20). This will allow him to pursue music rather than the legal career insisted upon by his father.
22 February 1872 Edvard Grieg (28) is elected a member of the Royal Music Academy in Stockholm.
24 February 1872 Francis Napier, Baron of Ettrick replaces Sir John Strachey as acting Viceroy of India.
Incidental music to Beaumarchais’ play (tr. Sadovski) The Barber of Seville by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (31) is performed for the first time, in Moscow.
28 February 1872 Kamenniy gost (The Stone Guest), an opera by Alyeksandr Dargomizhsky (†3) to words of Pushkin, completed by Cesar Cui (37) and orchestrated by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov (27), is performed for the first time, in the Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg.
29 February 1872 Léon Escudier launches a withering attack on the Société Nationale de Musique in his journal L’Art Musical.
8 March 1872 Fleurette, oder Näherin und Trompeter, a komische Operette by Jacques Offenbach (52) to words of Hopp and Zell (pseud. of Walzel) after de Forges and Laurencin (pseud. of Chapelle), is performed for the first time, in the Carl-Theater, Vienna.
11 March 1872 Two songs by Johannes Brahms (38) are performed for the first time, in Vienna: Nicht mehr zu dir zu gehen op.32/2 to traditional words, and Ich schleich umher op.32/3 to words of Platen.
13 March 1872 The music publisher Georges Hartmann brings his young protégé Jules Massenet (29) to the home of the famous conductor Étienne Pasdeloup. Massenet plays for him his new opera Mari-Magdeleine. Pasdeloup declines to perform it.
16 March 1872 The first FA cup is won by the Wanderers 1-0 over the Royal Engineers in Kennington Oval cricket ground, London.
19 March 1872 A board of Russian censors recommends the performance of Modest Musorgsky’s (32) opera Boris Godunov, the only objection being an 1837 edict prohibiting the operatic representation of a Tsar. See 17 April 1872.
26 March 1872 Introduction et variations for ten players by Jules Massenet (29) is performed for the first time, in Paris.
29 March 1872 Oto drzewo krzyza (Ecce lignum crucis) for baritone, chorus and organ by Stanislaw Moniuszko (52) is performed for the first time, in Warsaw.
6 April 1872 Romance for flute and orchestra op.37 by Camille Saint-Saëns (36) is performed for the first time, in the Salle Pleyel, Paris, conducted by the composer.
10 April 1872 Incidental music to Bjørnson’s play Sigurd Jorsalfar by Edvard Grieg (28) is performed for the first time, in Christiania (Oslo). Criticism is mixed but the public is appreciative.
Two songs by Antonin Dvorák (30) are performed for the first time, in Prague: The Reason, to words of Krásnohorská, and The Orphan to words of Erben.
14 April 1872 The overture to Antonin Dvorák’s (30) unperformed opera King and Charcoal Burner is performed for the first time, in Prague, conducted by Bedrich Smetana (48). On the same program is the premiere of Smetana’s Libuse overture. See 11 June 1881.
Le Rouet d’Omphale op.31, a symphonic poem by Camille Saint-Saëns (36), is performed for the first time in its orchestral setting, in Paris. See 7 December 1871.
15 April 1872 Mily Balakirev (35) conducts the fourth concert of the 1871-72 Free School of Music subscription series. It is poorly attended and the fifth concert will be cancelled for lack of funds. Balakirev will not conduct again for ten years. The Polonaise from Modest Musorgsky’s (33) unperformed opera Boris Godunov is premiered. See 18 July 1872.
17 April 1872 Tsar Alyeksandr II authorizes the production of Modest Musorgsky’s (33) opera Boris Godunov.
Two brothers, Lyman and Joseph Bloomingdale, open their Great East Side Bazaar on East 56th Street in New York City. They sell a variety of women’s clothing.
21 April 1872 An insurrection begins in the north of Spain in favor of the pretender, Don Carlos de Borbon.
Josef Rubinstein, a young, mentally unstable musician, arrives at Tribschen from his home in Kharkov. After reading Wagner’s (58) Das Judenthum in Musik he came to a choice between suicide or following the man who had shown him his inherent Jewish deficiencies. As Wagner is leaving for Bayreuth tomorrow, he invites Rubinstein to join him there.
22 April 1872 Richard Wagner (58) leaves his house near Lucerne, Tribschen, forever. He moves to Bayreuth to oversee construction of the Festspielhaus.
23 April 1872 Arthur George Farwell is born in St. Paul, Minnesota, second of two children born to George Lyman Farwell, owner of a hardware business, and Sara Gardner Wyer, a descendant of one of the first English families in New England, and the founder of the first kindergarten in St. Paul.
29 April 1872 Cosima Wagner, her five children, nursemaid, personal maid and dog Russ leave Tribschen, setting up household tomorrow with Wagner (58) in the Hotel Fantaisie in Donndorf, near Bayreuth.
1 May 1872 Strasbourg University opens.
Te Deum and Domine salvam fac reginam for chorus and orchestra by Arthur Sullivan (29) is performed for the first time, in the Crystal Palace, London, as part of a day of national thanksgiving for the recovery of the Prince of Wales from typhoid.
2 May 1872 Rightist pretender Don Carlos crosses the border into Spain but will fail in his ambition to begin an uprising.
3 May 1872 Thomas George Baring, Viscount Baring of Lee replaces Francis Napier, Baron of Ettrick as Viceroy of India.
4 May 1872 Outnumbered government troops defeat the Carlists at Orquieta. Don Carlos escapes.
7 May 1872 Giuseppe Verdi (58) receives a letter from a Signor Prospero Bertani of Reggio, demanding that the composer reimburse him for his train travel, supper and two viewings of Aida, which he finds totally lacking in virtue. Verdi pays for the tickets and train fare, but not the supper.
8 May 1872 Charles Gounod (53) conducts the first of four choral concerts in Royal Albert Hall. Critics do not like him or his music or the fact that he is not English and does not program English music.
12 May 1872 Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte (former Emperor Napoléon III) issues a letter from England taking responsibility for the loss at Sedan.
15 May 1872 A memorial statue to Franz Schubert (†43) by Karl Kundmann is dedicated in the Stadtpark, Vienna.
Charles Villiers Stanford (19) gives his first organ recital, on the newly rebuilt organ of Trinity College, Cambridge.
17 May 1872 Land Sighting for baritone, male chorus, and harmonium or organ by Edvard Grieg (28) to words of Bjørnson, is performed for the first time, in the Akershus fortress, to raise money for the restoration of Trondheim Cathedral.
18 May 1872 Richard Wagner (58) writes to Franz Liszt (60) offering an olive branch and inviting him to the laying of the foundation stone of the Bayreuth Festspielhaus.
Two songs by Gabriel Fauré (27) are performed for the first time, by the Société National de Musique: Lydia op.4/2, to words of de Lisle, and Seule! op.3/4 to words of Gautier.
19 May 1872 Mass in B flat “Piotrowinska” for solo voices, chorus, and organ by Stanislaw Moniuszko (53) is performed for the first time, in Warsaw.
20 May 1872 Franz Liszt (60) writes to Richard Wagner (58), ending his anger at him and his daughter Cosima.
22 May 1872 On his 59th birthday, in a driving rain, Richard Wagner lays the cornerstone for the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. Later, in the town’s opera house, Wagner speaks on how he envisions the building and then conducts a performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s (†45) Symphony no.9 in celebration. There is an enormous banquet. Friedrich Nietzsche, who accompanies Wagner, will write, “Everything that had happened up to now was a preparation for this moment.”
Djamileh, an opéra comique by Georges Bizet (33) to words of Gallet, is performed for the first time, at the Théâtre Favart, Paris. Bizet sits in the prompter’s box to make sure nothing goes wrong. Towards the end, he tells a friend, “It’s a complete flop.” It is not a flop, but neither is it a success. Later, the composer will say, “If you want to succeed today, you have to be dead, or German.”
Spring Comes Hither op.1/4 for voice and piano by Charles Villiers Stanford (19) is performed for the first time, at Cambridge University.
The Amnesty Act is signed by US President Grant, reinstating the citizenship rights to all southerners except for 500 Confederate leaders.
24 May 1872 Two days after the laying of the cornerstone, Richard Wagner (59) hires an architect to build the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. He signs a contract with Peter Otto Brückwald of Leipzig.
26 May 1872 Juan Bautista Topete y Carballa replaces Práxedes Mateo-Sagasta Escolar as Prime Minister of Spain.
29 May 1872 Edward Elgar (14) dates his earliest surviving work, The Language of Flowers, for piano. He dedicates it “To my sister Lucy on her birthday.”
31 May 1872 Richard Strauss (7) hears his music for the first time when the Harbni, an amateur orchestra conducted by his father, rehearses his Panzenburg-polka at the home of Richard’s uncle Georg Pschorr in Munich. It was orchestrated by Richard’s father, Franz.
2 June 1872 Prime Minister Friedrich Adam Justus, Baron Hegnenberg-Dux of Bavaria dies in Munich.
4 June 1872 Stanislaw Moniuszko dies of a heart attack in Warsaw, aged 53 years and 30 days.
Francisco Serrano y Domínguez, duque de la Torre, conde de San Antonio replaces Juan Bautista Topete y Carballo as Prime Minister of Spain.
5 June 1872 Triumphlied for baritone, chorus and orchestra by Johannes Brahms (39) to words from the Bible is performed completely for the first time, in the Karlsruhe Hoftheater. It is spectacularly successful. Clara Schumann (52), who is present, writes that it is “certainly the deepest and grandest piece of church music since Bach.”
8 June 1872 Anton Rubinstein (42) signs a contract in Vienna for an American tour with Jacob Grau, tour manager, and CF Theodor Steinway of Steinway&Sons.
12 June 1872 The Cantata in Commemoration of the Bicentenary of the Birth of Peter the Great by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (32) to words of Polonsky is performed for the first time, in Moscow. The performance takes place on the Troitsky Bridge as part of festivities opening a polytechnical exhibition.
La princesse jaune, an opéra-comique by Camille Saint-Saëns (36) to words of Gallet, is performed for the first time, at the Théâtre Favart, Paris.
13 June 1872 Johann Strauss (46) arrives in New York aboard SS Rhein from Bremerhaven after a 13-day crossing along with his wife, valet, maid, and dog. He is headed to Boston to conduct at the Boston Peace Festival.
Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla replaces Francisco Serrano y Domínguez, duque de la Torre, conde de San Antonio as Prime Minister of Spain.
16 June 1872 Mass no.3 in f minor for soloists, chorus, orchestra, and organ by Anton Bruckner (47) is performed for the first time, in the Augustinerkirche, Vienna under the direction of the composer.
17 June 1872 The World Peace Jubilee and International Music Festival opens in Boston. Among those who will perform over the next two weeks are Johann Strauss (46) and his orchestra, the Garde Republican Band of France, the English Grenadier Guards Band, and the Kaiser Franz Grenadiers Band from Germany. 19,000 players and singers will take part in a 100,000 seat structure.
19 June 1872 By act of the Reichstag, all members of the Society of Jesus are expelled from Germany during the ongoing Kulturkampf between Chancellor Bismarck and the Roman Catholic Church. The highly nationalistic mood of the country does not allow such an international organization.
22 June 1872 The St. Petersburg publisher Vasily Bessel presents Modest Musorgsky (33) with a copy of the first edition of his song cycle The Nursery.
24 June 1872 The Orchesterschule opens in Weimar to train orchestral musicians, mostly with new music.
25 June 1872 Hubert Parry (24) marries Elizabeth Maude Herbert, the daughter of the 1st Baron Herbert of Lea and granddaughter of the 11th Earl of Pembroke, in St.Paul’s Church, Knightsbridge. See 20 June 1870.
26 June 1872 Edward Elgar (15) finishes his last term at Littleton House and enters the law office of William Allen in Worcester.
4 July 1872 The World Peace Jubilee and International Music Festival concludes in Boston. See 17 June 1872.
6 July 1872 Gerrit de Vries and Isaac Dignus Fransen van de Putte replace Johann Rudolf Thorbecke as chief ministers of the Netherlands.
12 July 1872 Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov (28) marries Nadezhda Nikolayevna Purgold, a pianist with much better musical training than himself. His best man is Modest Musorgsky (33).
14 July 1872 Edward Elgar (15) plays the organ at mass for the first time, in St. George’s, Worcester.
18 July 1872 Because of so many career failures, Mily Balakirev’s (35) financial position is critical. On this day he begins work in St. Petersburg for the Central Railway Company, Warsaw Line, in the Goods Department. He continues to give lessons every weekday evening.
The Ballot Act introduces the secret ballot into Great Britain.
President Benito Pablo Juárez García of Mexico dies of heart failure in Mexico City.
19 July 1872 Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada y Corral replaces Benito Pablo Juárez García as President of Mexico.
20 July 1872 Leos Janácek (18) completes studies at the Teachers’ Institute in Brünn (Brno).
Epameinontas Mitrou Deligeorgis replaces Demetrios Georgiou Voulgaris as Prime Minister of Greece.
24 July 1872 Leos Janácek (18) receives a temporary certificate allowing him to teach provisionally in primary schools.
28 July 1872 France institutes general conscription to create a standing army.
31 July 1872 Midhat Pasha replaces Mahmud Nedim Pasha as Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire.
11 August 1872 Evening. Lowell Mason dies at his home in Orange, New Jersey, aged 80 years, seven months, and three days.
15 August 1872 After a funeral service in Orange Valley Congregational Church, the earthly remains of Lowell Mason are laid to rest in Rosedale Cemetery, Orange, New Jersey.
18 August 1872 The first mail-order catalogue is issued, a one-page price list by Aaron Montgomery Ward of Chicago.
22 August 1872 An overland telegraph wire is completed between Adelaide and Darwin. This meets a telegraph connection with the Netherlands East Indies and the rest of the world.
Prince Milan Obrenovic IV of Serbia reaches majority and rules in his own right. Milivoje Petrovic Blaznavac replaces Radivoje Milojkovic as prime minister.
1 September 1872 Anton Rubinstein (42) departs Liverpool aboard the Cuba making for New York.
2 September 1872 Richard (59) and Cosima Wagner visit Franz Liszt (60) at the Russischer Hof Hotel in Weimar, effecting a reconciliation. It is the first time the two men have met since 1867.
3 September 1872 While visiting her father, Franz Liszt (60), in Weimar, Cosima Wagner writes, “I am terribly upset by my father’s weariness of soul...I saw the tragedy of my father’s life as in a vision--during the night I shed many tears.” (C.Wagner, 148)
7 September 1872 Emperors Wilhelm I, Franz Joseph II, and Alyeksandr II meet in Berlin and form an entente between their countries: Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia.
11 September 1872 Anton Rubinstein (42) disembarks in New York having crossed from Liverpool on the Cuba. There is excitement and anticipation on his arrival.
12 September 1872 Russische Marsch-Fantasie op.353 by Johann Strauss (46) is performed for the first time, in Schwender’s “Neue Welt”, Vienna.
Over 2,000 people gather outside Anton Rubinstein’s (42) hotel in New York where the Philharmonic Society serenades him. In between numbers, the pianist says a few words of thanks to the cheering crowd.
13 September 1872 Karl von Hofmann replaces Friedrich, Baron Lindelof as Prime Minister of Hesse.
14 September 1872 A five-man international Court of Arbitration in Geneva finds the United Kingdom at fault and orders it to pay $15,500,000 to the United States for damages done by Confederate ships built in Britain.
17 September 1872 Im russischen Dorfe op.355, a fantasie by Johann Strauss (46), is performed for the first time, in Baden-Baden.
18 September 1872 King Carl XV of Sweden dies in Malmö and is succeeded by his brother Oscar II.
21 September 1872 Der schwarzer Korsar, a komische Operette by Jacques Offenbach (53) to words of Genée, Nuitter, Tréfeu, and the composer, is performed for the first time, in the Theater-an-der-Wien, Vienna.
23 September 1872 Anton Rubinstein (42) makes his American debut in Steinway Hall, New York. It is a triumph before a standing room only crowd. He will perform 15 times in greater New York between now and 12 October.
24 September 1872 Adolf, Baron Pfretzschner replaces Friedrich Adam Justus, Baron Hegnenberg-Dux as Prime Minister of Bavaria.
29 September 1872 United States troops attack a Commanche village on McClellan’s Creek, Carson County, Texas. 23 people are killed, 124 women and children are imprisoned and 262 homes destroyed. Two soldiers are killed, two wounded.
1 October 1872 Incidental music to Daudet’s play L’arlesienne by Georges Bizet (33) is performed for the first time, in the Théâtre du Vaudeville, Paris. Present in the audience are Ambroise Thomas (61) and Jules Massenet (30). According to the playwright, “It was a most dazzling failure.”
8 October 1872 Jane Anton Satie dies in Paris. Two of her three children, Erik (6) and younger brother Conrad, are sent to live with their paternal grandparents in Honfleur.
12 October 1872 Ralph Vaughan Williams is born in Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, youngest of three children born to Rev. Arthur Charles Vaughan Williams, Vicar of Christ Church, Down Ampney, and Margaret Susan Wedgwood.
Almost three months of voting end in the second general election in Canada. Conservative parties led by John A. MacDonald continue to hold power.
14 October 1872 The first railroad in Japan officially opens with 29 km of track between Tokyo and Yokohama.
Anton Rubinstein (42) gives the first of nine concerts in New England, in Boston. The audience is smaller here than New York, but no less enthusiastic.
15 October 1872 Franz Liszt (59) makes his first visit to Bayreuth to visit Richard (59) and Cosima Wagner.
17 October 1872 Prague Opera musicians, led by Antonin Dvorák (31), send a letter in support of Bedrich Smetana (48) to the theatre’s intendant, FL Rieger, who has been trying to remove him.
19 October 1872 Mütercim Mehmed Rüstü Pasha replaces Midhat Pasha as Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire.
21 October 1872 Emperor Wilhelm of Germany issues his arbitration of the border dispute between Great Britain and the United States. He accepts the US claim to the San Juan Islands and names the Haro Strait as the border with Vancouver Island.
22 October 1872 Claude Debussy (10) enters the Paris Conservatoire in the piano class of Antoine Marmontel and the solfege class of Albert Lavignac.
25 October 1872 Claude Debussy (10) attends his first piano class at the Conservatoire.
28 October 1872 John Knowles Paine (33) gives the inaugural lecture at the College of Music of Boston University.
Anton Rubinstein (42) gives a concert in Philadelphia, the first of nine in that city, Washington, and Baltimore over the next two weeks to tumultuous acclaim.
31 October 1872 On Reformation Day, Cosima Wagner officially converts to the Protestant faith in the parish church of Bayreuth.
Mondnacht WoO21, a song by Johannes Brahms (39) to words of Eichendorff, is performed for the first time, in Leipzig.
5 November 1872 Japan accepts sovereignty over the Ryukyu Islands.
Voting in the United States ensures the reelection of President Ulysses S. Grant over former Representative Horace Greeley. Grant’s Republican Party gains 63 seats in the House of Representatives. Susan B. Anthony is arrested for attempting to vote in the election. She will be found guilty and fined $100.
7 November 1872 Claude Debussy (10) attends his first solfege class at the Conservatoire.
9 November 1872 19:00 Fire breaks out in Boston and will continue through tomorrow. By its end it will destroy 776 buildings over 26 hectares of the city. 33 people are killed and $73,500,000 damage is done. 2,163 firefighters from 31 communities are involved. The march of the flames is finally halted by using dynamite to destroy buldings in its path.
10 November 1872 Johannes Brahms (39) conducts his first performance with the Vienna Gesellschaftskonzerte, beginning a championing of the music of JS Bach (†122) and GF Handel (†113). The organist is Anton Bruckner (48). His interest in Baroque music is not shared by his audience.
The first suite from the incidental music to L’arlesienne by Georges Bizet (34) is performed for the first time, in the Cirque d’hiver, Paris. The music, unlike the play, proves a great success. See 1 October 1872.
16 November 1872 Georges Bizet’s (34) operetta Sol-si-re-pif-pan to words of Busnach is performed for the first time, at the Chateau d’Eau, Paris.
18 November 1872 Susan B. Anthony is arrested at her home in Rochester, New York for voting in the election of 5 November.
22 November 1872 Quintet for piano and strings op.5 by Antonin Dvorák (31) is performed for the first time, in Konvikt Hall, Prague.
27 November 1872 Von waldbekränzter Höhe op.57/1, a song by Johannes Brahms (39) to words of Daumer, is performed for the first time, in Vienna.
Incidental music to Legouvé’s play Les deux reines by Charles Gounod (54) is performed for the first time, in the Théâtre-Ventadour, Paris.
At the request of Charles Villiers Stanford (20), the Cambridge University Music Society admits women to its choir.
28 November 1872 Conscription is introduced in Japan.
30 November 1872 The first International Association football match takes place between England and Scotland in Patrick, near Glasgow. It ends in a tie, 0-0.
Don César de Bazan, an opéra comique by Jules Massenet (30) to words of d’Ennery, Dumanoir and Chantepie after Hugo, is performed for the first time, at the Théâtre Favart, Paris. It will receive only 13 performances.
Before a Southern Convent op.20 for solo voices, female chorus and orchestra by Edvard Grieg (29) to words of Bjørnson is performed for the first time, in Christiania (Oslo).
3 December 1872 English archaeologist George Smith reads his translation of the flood story, the end of the Epic of Gilgamesh which he found at Nineveh, to a meeting of the Society of Biblical Archaeology in London.
4 December 1872 József Szlávy de Erkenéz et Okány replaces Manyhért Count Lónyay de Nagylónya et Vásáros-nameny as Prime Minister of Hungary.
Eric Satie (6) and his three-year-old brother Conrad are baptized into the Roman Catholic faith in St. Catherine’s Church, Honfleur. Their Scottish mother had them baptized as Anglicans but upon her death two months ago, the boys are sent to live with their paternal grandparents, who insist on the change.
7 December 1872 Sonata no.1 op.32 for cello and piano by Camille Saint-Saëns (37) is performed for the first time, in Paris, the composer at the keyboard.
11 December 1872 King Kamehameha V of Hawaii dies in Honolulu.
12 December 1872 On his arrival to conduct a performance at the Prague Provisional Theatre, Bedrich Smetana (48) is greeted by a ten-minute ovation from artists, orchestra and audience in response to attempts by rivals to remove him from his post.
17 December 1872 Oscar Magnus Fredrik Björnstjerna replaces Baltzar von Platen as Prime Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden.
18 December 1872 Serenade for Nikolay Rubinstein’s Name Day for small orchestra by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (32) is performed for the first time, privately, in the Moscow apartment of the dedicatee. See 5 November 1953.
Seven of the songs op.57/2-8 by Johannes Brahms (39) to words and translations by Daumer, are performed for the first time, in Vienna.
22 December 1872 Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours by Jules Verne is published in serial form beginning today in Paris.
©2004-2012 Paul Scharfenberger
13 August 2012
Last Updated (Monday, 13 August 2012 06:23)