1789
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6 January 1789 Franz Egon von Fürstenberg replaces Friedrich Wilhelm, Baron von Westfalen as Prince-Bishop of Hildesheim and Prince-Bishop of Paderborn.
9 January 1789 Egmont by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is performed for the first time, in Mainz.
14 January 1789 Six Duets B.513-518 for two violins by Ignaz Pleyel (31) is entered at Stationers’ Hall, London.
17 January 1789 Elementary Treatise on Chemistry presented in a New Order according to Modern Discoveries by Antoine Lavoisier is published in Paris. In it he presents his discoveries on the conservation of mass.
21 January 1789 The first American novel, The Power of Sympathy, or the Triumph of Nature, by William Hill Brown, is published in Boston.
24 January 1789 King Louis XVI directs that the election to the Estates-General will be direct except for the third estate which will be indirect. Even so, with all tax-paying residents 25 or over enfranchised, it is the largest electorate yet seen.
26 January 1789 Protesilao, an opera seria by Johann Friedrich Reichardt (36) to words of Sertor, is performed for the first time, in the Königliches Theater, Berlin.
The Théâtre de Monsieur begins operatic performances in the Salle des Machines of the Tuileries Palace, Paris. It is founded by Comte Louis de Provence, brother of the king, who wants his own company equal to the royal theatres. It will expire on 12 April 1801.
3 February 1789 The Society of the Friends of the Blacks is set up by several prominent French gentlemen as an anti-slavery society in Paris.
5 February 1789 Catone in Utica, a dramma per musica by Giovanni Paisiello (48) to words of Metastasio, is performed for the first time, in Teatro San Carlo, Naples.
7 February 1789 Publication of two String Quintets B.278-279 by Ignaz Pleyel (31) is announced in the Frankfurter Ristretto.
10 February 1789 A new tax law is introduced in Habsburg lands, the first based on equality of citizens rather than the feudal system.
11 February 1789 A Requiem in c minor by Giovanni Paisiello (48) is performed for the first time, in Naples.
Il pastor fido, a dramma tragicomico by Antonio Salieri (38) to words of da Ponte after Guarini, is performed for the first time, in the Burgtheater, Vienna. It will receive only three performances, will be substantially revised by the composer, and presented again in October.
18 February 1789 Paolo Renier, Doge of Venice, dies. The fact is kept secret until 2 March so as not to disturb Carnival.
2 March 1789 Raoul Barbe-bleue, a comédie mise en musique by André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry (48) to words of Sedaine after Perrault, is performed for the first time, at the Comédie-Italienne, Paris.
4 March 1789 The First Congress of the United States is called at Federal Hill, New York City. A quorum is not present.
6 March 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s (33) arrangement of Messiah by George Frideric Handel (†29) is premiered at Count Johann Baptist Esterházy’s residence in Vienna, conducted by the arranger.
9 March 1789 Luigi Manin becomes Doge of Venice replacing Paolo Renier.
10 March 1789 Thousands of French peasants enter restricted forests, killing rabbits and game birds, a blatant breaking of the game laws, as a form of protest.
Johann Nepomuk Hummel (10) performs a Mozart (33) piano concerto (perhaps K.503), his Variations on “Lison dormait” K.264 and a set of original variations at a concert in Dresden. Mozart is in attendance.
14 March 1789 The Bishop of Sisteron is stoned at Manosque in Provence, barely escaping with his life. He ransoms himself from the mob with 50,000 livres.
16 March 1789 Publication of Jan Ladislav Dussek’s (29) three keyboard sonatas C.50-52 is announced in the Journal de Paris.
17 March 1789 André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry’s (48) opéra Aspasie to words of Morel de Chédeville, is performed for the first time, at the Paris Opéra.
21 March 1789 The Wiener Zeitung announces the publication of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s (33) Lieder K.523 and 524 and Six German Dances K.536.
23 March 1789 An angry mob destroys and loots the headquarters of the intendant in Marseille. Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau, takes control of the provincial government.
25 March 1789 Mobs riot in Aix-en-Provence and troops sent to quell them fire into the crowds.
26 March 1789 La prêtresse du soleil, a drame by Giuseppe Cambini (43) to words of Gabiot de Salins, is performed for the first time, at the Théâtre du Comte de Beaujolais, Paris.
28 March 1789 Gamekeepers on the estates of the Prince of Condé near Chantilly attempt to stop illegal hunting by peasants and are shot dead on the spot.
30 March 1789 Bread riots break out at Besançon led by women enforcing low grain prices.
1 April 1789 The United States House of Representatives reaches a quorum and formally organizes itself. Voting for members began last December and will not conclude until August 1790. No political parties exist, but members who broadly support President-elect Washington are in the majority.
3 April 1789 Royal assent is granted to the Act of Unity and Security, vesting absolute power in King Gustaf III of Sweden.
6 April 1789 The United States Senate reaches a quorum and formally organizes itself.
7 April 1789 Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid I dies and is succeeded by his nephew Selim III.
8 April 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33) and Prince Karl Lichnowsky depart Vienna for Berlin.
10 April 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33) and Prince Karl Lichnowsky arrive in Prague.
12 April 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33) and Prince Karl Lichnowsky arrive in Dresden.
13 April 1789 The String Trio K.563 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33) is performed for the first time, in the Hotel de Pologne, Dresden.
14 April 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33) performs in the private apartments of Electress Amalie von Pfalz-Zweibrücken in Dresden. He plays the piano concerto K.537 and perhaps one of his last three symphonies.
15 April 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33) engages in an impromptu duel with Johann Wilhelm Hässler on the organ of the court church in Dresden, and the piano of Prince Alyeksandr Mikhailovich Beloselsky, the Russian ambassador to Saxony.
18 April 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33) and Prince Karl Lichnowsky depart Dresden.
20 April 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33) and Prince Karl Lichnowsky arrive in Leipzig.
22 April 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33) plays the organ in the Thomaskirche, Leipzig, to a large and appreciative audience, without remuneration.
23 April 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33) and Prince Karl Lichnowsky depart Leipzig for Berlin.
A great service of Thanksgiving takes place in St. Paul’s Cathedral for the recovery of King George III from apparent madness.
25 April 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33) and Prince Karl Lichnowsky reach Potsdam.
28 April 1789 Fletcher Christian leads a mutiny against Captain William Bligh aboard HMS Bounty casting him and 18 loyal crew members adrift in a life boat near Tofua Island (Tonga).
After two days of demonstrations against a Paris factory owner named Révillon (who threatened to cut his workers’ salaries) a mob sets upon his house and factory, destroying them. Troops (some regulars) arrive and are attacked with stones. After shots in the air have no effect, the troops fire into the crowd. Around fifty people are killed or wounded.
29 April 1789 Three Quartets for flute, violin, viola and cello B.381-383 by Ignaz Pleyel (31) are entered at Stationers’ Hall, London.
30 April 1789 Amid much pomp and ceremony, George Washington is inaugurated as the first President of the United States in New York.
2 May 1789 King Louis XVI formally receives the Estates-General.
Publication of Six Duets B.519-524 for two violins by Ignaz Pleyel (31) are announced in the Wiener Zeitung.
5 May 1789 The Estates-General open in the Salle des Menus Plaisirs with a short speech by King Louis XVI and a long speech by controller-general Jacques Necker. The deputies are underwhelmed.
Sent by the Viceroy of New Spain to assert Spanish claims to the northwest coast of North American, José Martínez with two ships arrives at Nootka Sound off Vancouver Island. Martínez seizes a British ship and its captain and detains them for a few days with warnings not to return.
8 May 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33) and Prince Karl Lichnowsky arrive back in Leipzig.
12 May 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33) gives a concert of his music in the Gewandhaus, Leipzig.
14 May 1789 Ludwig van Beethoven (18) matriculates at the University of Bonn in the faculty of philosophy.
17 May 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33) and Prince Karl Lichnowsky depart Leipzig.
19 May 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33) arrives alone in Berlin.
20 May 1789 Kethuda Çerkes Hasan Pasha replaces Koca Yusuf Pasha as Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire.
23 May 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33) hears Johann Nepomuk Hummel (10) play in Berlin.
26 May 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33) gives a private performance before King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia in Potsdam. He is commissioned to compose six piano sonatas and six string quartets. (there is reason to believe that none of this ever happened)
28 May 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33) departs Berlin.
31 May 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33) arrives in Prague.
1 June 1789 Jan Ladislav Dussek (29) performs at Hanover Square Rooms, London, perhaps his first appearance in England.
2 June 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33) departs Prague.
3 June 1789 Alexander Mackenzie departs Fort Chipewyan (Alberta) in an attempt to discover a water route to the Pacific.
4 June 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33) and Prince Karl Lichnowsky arrive back in Vienna.
The seven-year-old Dauphin, son of King Louis XVI, dies of tuberculosis. The nation barely notices.
The Captivity of Judah, an oratorio by William Crotch (13) to words of Schomberg and Owen, is performed for the first time, at Trinity Hall, Cambridge where Crotch is a student.
8 June 1789 An Ode on His Majesty’s Recovery by François-André Danican-Philidor (62) is performed for the first time, in Hanover Square Rooms, London.
A second British ship arrives at Nootka Sound and is promptly seized by Captain Martínez who uses the ship to explore the area.
9 June 1789 Alexander Mackenzie and his party reach Great Slave Lake, about 300 km north of his starting point, Fort Chipewyan.
13 June 1789 The Journal de la Librairie, Paris announces the printing by Sieber of Joseph Haydn’s (57) string quartets opp.54 and 55.
Three country priests arrive at the Estates-General. Within a week more than a hundred more will show up, significantly changing the makeup of the First Estate.
12 June 1789 After a voyage of 45 days and 5,821 km in an open boat, Captain William Bligh and 17 loyal crew members from HMS Bounty arrive at the island of Timor. In an astounding feat of seamanship, Bligh lost only one man, killed by natives when they stopped at an island to retrieve water.
Whiskey distilled from corn is produced for the first time by Rev. Elijah Craig. He names the new elixir after his home, Bourbon County, Kentucky.
13 June 1789 Three members of the ecclesiastical estate join the Third Estate, to great rejoicing.
17 June 1789 The Third Estate votes 490-90 to call itself a National Assembly and declares that all taxes not authorized by it are void.
21:55 Fire breaks out in the King’s Theatre, London while a rehearsal is going on. The building is totally destroyed, but no lives are lost.
18 June 1789 Emperor Joseph II dissolves the autonomy of Brabant in the Austrian Netherlands.
20 June 1789 After workmen lock the Salle des Menus Plaisirs to renovate it for the enlarged assembly, members of the National Assembly arrive and assume their inability to enter is a deliberate act of the government. The 600 deputies march through a driving rain with a growing crowd to a tennis court in the Rue du Vieux Versailles. They swear an oath “to God and the Patrie never to be separated until we have formed a solid and equitable constitution as our constituents have asked us to.” It is forever known as the “Tennis Court Oath.”
22 June 1789 King Louis XVI begins to move troops closer to Paris.
Several noblemen join the Third Estate.
23 June 1789 King Louis XVI presents 15 articles to the Estates-General showing his intention to continue the separation of the three estates and calling the action of 17 June illegal. This is followed by 35 reform measures. He ends by saying that should the assembly abandon him he would be forced “to proceed alone for the good of my people, and I will continue myself alone to be their true representative.” After the King departs, the Third Estate remains and affirms its recent declarations.
24 June 1789 Captain José Martínez formally claims the northwest coast of North America for Spain, in a ceremony at Nootka Sound.
25 June 1789 Most of the members of the ecclesiastical estate join the Third Estate.
Giovanni Paisiello’s (49) commedia in prose ed in verso per musica Nina, o sia La pazza per amore to words of Carpani after Mersollier des Vivetières, is performed for the first time, at Teatro San Leucio, Caserta.
26 June 1789 47 noblemen join the Third Estate in the French National Assembly.
27 June 1789 King Louis XVI dissolves the two privileged orders of the Estates-General and unifies all three. At night, fireworks explode over Paris.
28 June 1789 Companies of the Gardes françaises go to the Palais-Royal to announce that they will not fire on the people.
30 June 1789 Two members of the Gardes françaises go to the National Assembly to denounce their commander. They are arrested and sent to Abbaye prison. A crowd of 400 thereupon effect their release.
Alexander Mackenzie and his party enter a river on the west end of the Great Slave Lake which today bears his name.
2 July 1789 A third and fourth British ship arrive at Nootka Sound. The first is ordered out by the Spanish Captain José Martínez. The second is seized and its captain arrested.
7 July 1789 Hieronymus Knicker, a singspiel by Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (49) possibly to his own words, is performed for the first time, in the Leopoldstadttheater, Vienna.
10 July 1789 King Louis XVI claims that the 20,000 new troops now in and around Paris are only there to quell riots and protect the Assembly.
11 July 1789 French controller-general Jacques Necker is dismissed by King Louis XVI and exiled from the country, creating great anger among the Third Estate. He is sent to Switzerland but ends up in Brussels.
12 July 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33) sends a letter to his friend and fellow mason Michael Puchberg desperately seeking money. It is one of 19 such letters Mozart writes to Puchberg.
Emanuel Schikaneder opens the Theater-auf-der-Wieden in Vienna.
Young revolutionary Camille Desmoulins gives a rousing speech at the Palais-Royal, urging all citizens to take up arms against the King. Crowds invade theatres requiring them to close to mourn the removal of Necker. At the Opéra, Grétry’s (48) Aspasie is just about to begin when 3,000 people enter and close it down. A Royal Cavalry troop is ordered to clear the Place Vendôme but is quickly surrounded by citizens. They retreat to the Place Louis XV (Place de la Concorde). The crowd runs into the Tuileries where they meet the soldiers and injuries occur. Citizens on the balustrade heave heavy objects onto the cavalrymen causing several injuries. Gardes françaises arrive and take up the cause of the citizens. The troopers are reinforced and attempt to form defensive positions, but in the early hours of 13 July they evacuate the area. It is the first organized resistance to royal power.
13 July 1789 Paul François de Quelen, duc de la Vauguyon replaces Armand Marc, comte de Montmorin Saint-Hérem as Chief Minister of France.
Over the night of 12-13 July, citizens ransack Paris looking for weapons. They tear down the Farmers’-General wall (where customs duties are levied) brick by brick. They also sack and loot the commercial storehouse in the monastery of Saint-Lazare. During the day, the military leadership of the Assembly attempt to gain control of the situation by forming militias.
14 July 1789 Some 80,000 Parisians converge on the Invalides. After some negotiation, they force their way in and liberate the 30,000 muskets therein along with several cannon. At 13:30, without authorization, a citizen cuts the drawbridge chains on the Bastille and the 900 citizens demanding its capitulation (and stores of powder) scurry across into the guns of the soldiers within. By 15:30, the battle turns into a siege, the citizens reinforced by Gardes françaises companies and cannon from the Invalides. At 17:00, the Bastille capitulates as the citizens rush in. They free seven prisoners and 14,000 kg of powder. 98 citizens die in the battle, while only one soldier is killed. However, three of the defenders, including the commander Bernard René Jordan, Marquis de Launay, will be killed by the mob. In the evening, King Louis XVI informs the National Assembly that he will withdraw troops from the center of Paris.
The score of Mozart’s (33) Le nozze di Figaro arrives in Eisenstadt for the perusal of the local kapellmeister, Joseph Haydn (57).
An expedition led by Scottish explorer Alexander Mackenzie reaches the Arctic Ocean, having traversed the river which now bears his name. He has traveled to a point about 1,600 km northwest of his start in 15 days.
A captured British ship, now with Spanish captain and crew, departs Nootka Sound for Spanish territory. It carries the British captain and crew as prisoners.
15 July 1789 The demolition of the Bastille begins. Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau, a former inmate, swings the ceremonial pick.
King Louis XVI walks without retinue to the National Assembly, announces the withdrawal of troops and denies he wishes them harm. The Assembly swears loyalty to him. The Marquis de Lafayette leads an enormous caravan of deputies who announce the events to a delirious city. Lafayette accepts command of the Paris militia. The King’s brother, Comte d’Artois, and his followers refuse to accept this “surrender” and leave the country.
16 July 1789 Armand Marc, comte de Montmorin Saint-Hérem replaces Paul François de Quelen, duc de la Vauguyon as Chief Minister of France.
17 July 1789 King Louis XVI, accompanied by 100 deputies, travels from Versailles to the Hôtel de Ville, Paris to acknowledge his status as a constitutional monarch. He names the Marquis de Lafayette as commander of the Paris National Guard.
21 July 1789 Alexander Mackenzie and his party begin their return journey from the Arctic Ocean.
23 July 1789 Muzio Clementi’s (37) keyboard sonata op.24/2 is entered at Stationers’ Hall, London.
Bertier de Sauvigny, the intendant of Paris, and Joseph François Foulon, minister-delegate in the royal government, are killed by a Parisian mob, the heads carried on pikes through the streets to cheering approval.
26 July 1789 Another inconclusive naval engagement takes place between Russian an Swedish ships off Öland.
Hezqeyas Iyasu replaces Tekle Giyorgis I Yohannes as Emperor of Ethiopia.
27 July 1789 The United States Department of Foreign Affairs is established.
29 July 1789 Johann Friedrich Reichardt’s (36) singspiel Claudine von Villa Bella, to words of Goethe, is performed for the first time, in the Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin.
30 July 1789 Alerame Maria Pallavicini replaces Raffaele De Ferrari Rodino as Doge of Genoa.
An expedition headed by Alessandro Malaspina, a Sicilian working for Spain, departs Cadiz to explore the west coast of the Americas and the South Pacific.
31 July 1789 Austrians and Russians defeat the Turks at Focsani, 160 km northeast of Bucharest.
4 August 1789 The French National Assembly abolishes feudal rights and tax immunities of the nobility and clergy, with the wholehearted support of most of the nobility and clergy.
7 August 1789 The United States Department of War is established.
9 August 1789 The National Guard appears for the first time in a great celebration in Paris including military bands and singers from the Opéra.
14 August 1789 Publication of the Concerto for cello in C B.104 by Ignaz Pleyel (32) is announced in the Frankfurter Ristretto.
24 August 1789 Russian naval forces defeat the Swedes at Svensksund (Ruotsinsalmi) (off Kotka, Finland).
26 August 1789 The French National Assembly adopts the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
28 August 1789 William Herschel discovers Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, from his home in Slough, England.
2 September 1789 The United States Department of the Treasury is established.
5 September 1789 The Wiener Zeitung anounces the publication of three works: Joseph Haydn’s (57) Fantasia in C XVII: 4, Das Veilchen K.476, a song for voice and piano by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33), and String Quintet B.285 by Ignaz Pleyel (32).
6 September 1789 Alma grande e nobil core K.578, an aria by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33) to words of Polomba, is performed for the first time, in Vienna, as part of a revival of I due baroni di Rocca Azzura by Domenico Cimarosa (39).
11 September 1789 Alexander Mackenzie and his party return to Fort Chipewyan (Alberta), 102 days after departing it. In that time, they have traversed all the way to the Arctic Ocean and back, a distance of over 3,200 km.
12 September 1789 Franz Xaver Richter dies in Strasbourg, aged 79 years, nine months and eleven days.
13 September 1789 With the death of Franz Xaver Richter, Ignaz Pleyel (32) is elevated to the position of cathedral organist in Strasbourg.
17 September 1789 William Herschel discovers Mimas, a moon of Saturn, from his home in Slough, England with his new reflecting telescope, the largest built to date.
19 September 1789 King Louis XVI announces that he accepts the spirit of the August Decrees and the Declaration of Rights but adds many debilitating conditions.
22 September 1789 Austrians and Russians defeat the Turks at Martinesti on the River Rivnik. In honor of the victory, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33) will compose a contredanse, Der Sieg vom Helden Koburg K.587.
24 September 1789 German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth tells the Academy of Sciences in Berlin of his isolation of a new element from pitchblende. He suggests naming it after the most recently discovered planet: uranium.
The United States Supreme Court and the Office of Attorney-General of the United States are created by the Federal Judiciary Act.
5 October 1789 6,000-7,000 women converge on the Hôtel de Ville, intending to march to Versailles to demand bread. They ransack the Hôtel de Ville, liberating 700 rifles and muskets and two cannon and march on to Versailles. The 15,000-man National Guard, reluctantly led by their commander, the Marquis de Lafayette, follow them. The crowd is barred from the palace, but is welcomed into the National Assembly. King Louis receives a delegation of women who he manages to ausuage. Before his guards arrive, Louis accepts the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the August Decrees.
6 October 1789 National Guardsmen and the King’s Bodyguard are kept separated at Versailles until about 05:30. Then the crowd enters the palace heading for the royal apartments. They barely miss capturing the Queen and with the assistance of the National Guard the royal family gains safety. Two bodyguards and one citizen are killed. Bolstered by the unexpected loyalty of the National Guard, Louis tells the crowd that he will return to Paris with them. The mortal danger is defused. A troop of 60,000 guardsmen, soldiers, women and royal household march off to Paris to install the King in the city.
8 October 1789 Austrian forces capture Belgrade from the Turks.
La Cleopatra, a dramma serio by Domenico Cimarosa (39) to words of Moretti, is performed for the first time, at the Hermitage, St. Petersburg.
10 October 1789 Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord first proposes that the French National Assembly expropriate Church property.
16 October 1789 Brenno, an opera seria by Johann Friedrich Reichardt (36) to words of Filistri, is performed for the first time, in the Königliches Theater, Berlin.
17 October 1789 August Christian Friedrich replaces Karl Georg Ludwig Lebrecht as Prince of Anhalt-Köthen.
Publication of the Concerto for violin in D B.103a by Ignaz Pleyel (32) is announced in the Journal de Paris.
24 October 1789 An assembly of Belgian revolutionaries declares Emperor Joseph II to be deposed in the Austrian Netherlands.
27 October 1789 An army of Belgian exiles, having crossed from the Netherlands, defeats the Austrians at Turnhout.
28 October 1789 Johann Nepomuk Hummel (10) gives a performance at the home of Landgraf Wilhelm IX in Weissenstein.
29 October 1789 The French National Assembly forbids citizens to take religious vows.
31 October 1789 Several arias and a chorus by Luigi Cherubini (29) are performed for the first time, in a production of Giovanni Paisiello’s (49) La molinarella, in the Théâtre de Monsieur, Paris.
2 November 1789 By a vote of 510-346, the French National Assembly declares Church property to be “at the disposal of the nation.”
4 November 1789 The Unitarian Richard Price, preaches to the Revolution Society in London A Discourse on the Love of Our Country, claiming that the American and French Revolutions are examples of Biblical prophecy fulfilled, and the millennium is at hand.
9 November 1789 Austrian forces occupy Bucharest which was abandoned by the Turks.
Two arias by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33), Chi sà, chi sà, qual sia K.582 and Vado, ma dove?--Oh Dei! K.583, both to words of da Ponte, are performed for the first time, in the Burgtheater, Vienna. Both are part of Martin y Soler’s Il burbero di buon cuore.
10 November 1789 Publication of a Symphony in E flat B.139 by Ignaz Pleyel (32) is announced in the Frankfurter Ristretto.
15 November 1789 Russian forces capture the Turkish fortress of Bender (Bendery, Moldova).
16 November 1789 A fifth child is born to Constanze and Wolfgang Amadus Mozart (33), Anna Maria, who dies an hour after birth.
20 November 1789 In response to the petition of Ludwig van Beethoven (18), the Archbishop-Elector of Cologne banishes Beethoven’s father to a country village and half his salary is to be paid to the son. His Eminence cites increased alcoholism and an inability to perform his duties.
21 November 1789 I zingari in fiera, a dramma per musica by Giovanni Paisiello (49) to words of Palomba, is performed for the first time, in Teatro Fondo, Naples.
The legislature of North Carolina ratifies the Constitution of the United States by a 197-77 vote, the twelfth state to do so.
29 November 1789 In the first of several such demonstrations, 12,000 French National Guardsmen stand on the banks of the Rhone and pledge to maintain constitutional freedom.
30 November 1789 Corsica, occupied since the 1760s, is formally annexed by France.
5 December 1789 Johann Nepomuk Hummel (11) gives a performance before 50 people at a “Women’s Club” in Celle.
9 December 1789 The French government decides to auction off 400,000,000 livres worth of Church property. This begins the state expropriation of Church property.
Johann Schenk’s (36) singspiel Das unvermuthete Seefest is performed for the first time, in Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden, Vienna.
11 December 1789 Antonio Salieri’s (39) dramma giocoso La Cifra to words of da Ponte after Petrosellini is performed for the first time, in the Burgtheater, Vienna.
Se il duol che il cor m’affana, an aria for a production of Guglielmi’s La pastorella nobile by Luigi Cherubini (29) is performed for the first time, in Théâtre de Monsieur, Paris.
12 December 1789 Duo for piano op.29 by Leopold Kozeluch (42) is entered at Stationers’ Hall, London.
13 December 1789 Revolutionaries in the Austrian Netherlands declare their independence under the name Belgium.
14 December 1789 Marianna Agata Wolowska (Szymanowska) is born in Warsaw, one of seven children born to Franciszek Wolowski, owner of a brewery, and Barbara Lanckoronska-Wolowska.
16 December 1789 Count Leopold I of Lippe takes on the title of Prince.
19 December 1789 The French National Assembly approves the sale of assignats, bonds at interest to purchase government-owned land. Beginning next year they will be treated as legal tender.
22 December 1789 Three Piano Sonatas with violin or cello accompaniment op.28 by Leopold Kozeluch (42) are entered at Stationers’ Hall, London.
The Quintet for Clarinet and Strings K.581 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33) is performed for the first time, in the Burgtheater, Vienna.
26 December 1789 Zenobia di Palmira, a dramma per musica by Pasquale Anfossi (62) to words of Sertor, is performed for the first time, in Teatro San Benedetto, Venice.
29 December 1789 Forces of Tipu of Mysore attack the Kingdom of Travancore (Kerala), an ally of the British East India Company.
Three Quartets for flute, violin, viola and cello B.384-386 by Ignaz Pleyel (32) are entered at Stationers’ Hall, London.
31 December 1789 Cosi fan tutte is rehearsed at the home of the composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (33), probably attended by Joseph Haydn (57).
©2004-2012 Paul Scharfenberger
4 July 2012
Last Updated (Wednesday, 04 July 2012 05:01)