1817
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2 January 1817 The first issue of the Vienna Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung appears.
3 January 1817 Publication of the Adagio, Variations and Rondo on “The Pretty Polly” op.75 for piano by Johann Nepomuk Hummel (38) is announced in the Wiener Zeitung.
4 January 1817 Canone finito a4 by Giacomo Meyerbeer (25), is performed for the first time, in Rome for Lous Spohr (32).
Uruguayan troops attack Portuguese on the Catalán Creek. After six hours, one-third of the Uruguayans are dead and they retreat. This encourages the Portuguese to destroy all Spanish towns in the territory in dispute. Thousands are killed.
6 January 1817 Royalist forces reoccupy Jujuy, Argentina.
12 January 1817 Teatro San Carlo in Naples reopens eleven months after having burned to the ground. The inaugural work is the premiere of Simon Mayr’s (53) melodramma allegorico Il sogno di Partenope to words of Lampredi, composed for the birthday of King Ferdinando I.
13 January 1817 Carl Maria von Weber (30) arrives in Dresden from Berlin to take up his position as Kapellmeister.
14 January 1817 Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny dies in Paris, aged 87 years, two months and 28 days.
16 January 1817 Carl Maria von Weber (30) learns that he has not been appointed Kapellmeister in Dresden after all but music director, an inferior position. He immediately resigns. King Friedrich August I of Saxony thereupon rules that Weber may have the higher position.
18 January 1817 The Army of the Andes, under General José Francisco de San Martín depart Plumerillo, Argentina heading west, intent on liberating Chile.
20 January 1817 A Portuguese army captures Montevideo.
21 January 1817 A setting of the Requiem by Luigi Cherubini (56) is performed for the first time, at St. Denis, Paris for the anniversary of the death of Louis XVI.
The first advertisement for the new firm of Stebbins and Mason dry goods store appears in the Savannah Gazette. Edward Stebbins has made Lowell Mason (25) a partner.
24 January 1817 António de Araújo de Azevedo, conde da Barca replaces Fernando José de Portugal e Castro, marques de Aguiar as Secretary of State (prime minister) of Portugal, in Brazil.
25 January 1817 France formally reoccupies Senegal, taken by Britain in 1809.
La cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo, a dramma giocoso by Gioachino Rossini (24) to words of Ferretti after Perrault, is performed for the first time, in Teatro Valle, Rome. The evening is a disaster owing to the inability of the singers to comprehend the music.
27 January 1817 Les rosières, an opéra comique by Louis Joseph Ferdinand Hérold to words of Théaulon de Lambert, is performed for the first time, in the Théâtre Feydeau, Paris on the eve of the composer’s 26th birthday. It is very successful.
28 January 1817 On returning from the opening of Parliament in London, the coach carrying the Prince-Regent of Great Britain is set upon by an angry mob. The windows are smashed, either by a rock or other projectile, or perhaps he was fired upon. The Prince-Regent will survive.
Rebel cavalry defeat royalists at Mucuritas, Venezuela, inflicting heavy casualties and causing them to retreat.
30 January 1817 Carl Maria von Weber (30) opens the German Opera in Dresden with Étienne-Nicholas Méhul’s (53) Joseph. It is a great success, particularly with King Friedrich August.
31 January 1817 A prelude and chorus for Grillparzer’s play Die Ahnfrau by Johann Nepomuk Hummel (38), is performed for the first time, in Theater-an-der-Wien, Vienna.
2 February 1817 Heinrich Alois, Count Reigersberg replaces Maximilian Joseph, Count Montgelas as President of the Council of Ministers of Bavaria.
5 February 1817 France introduces a new electoral law limiting franchise and increasing the power of the middle class.
8 February 1817 Royalists capture Barcelona, Venezuela but rebels under Simón Bolívar find refuge in the San Francisco Convent. They will be reinforced and in a few days the royalists will withdraw.
10 February 1817 King Wilhelm I of Württemberg signs a contract with Johann Nepomuk Hummel (38), four months after Hummel began working for him.
12 February 1817 While on their way from Rome to Milan, Gioachino Rossini (24) and his friend Marchese Francesco Sampieri stop off in Spoleto and see a performance of L’Italiana in Algeri. They sit in with the orchestra, Sampieri on harpsichord, Rossini on bass.
A rebel army under José de San Martín crushes Spanish and loyalist forces at Chacabuco, 45 km north of Santiago de Chile.
13 February 1817 As the revolutionary army arrives in Santiago, the royal government of Chile takes ship at Valparaiso.
14 February 1817 Bernardo O’Higgins is named Supreme Director of Chile.
17 February 1817 Baltimore becomes the first United States city to be lit by gas streetlights.
20 February 1817 By this date, all banks in the United States must return to specie payments.
1 March 1817 Muzio Clementi’s (65) Gradus ad Parnassum is published simultaneously in London, Paris and Leipzig.
Publication of Thirty Rounds for Piano Forte by William Crotch (40) is entered at Stationers’ Hall, London.
3 March 1817 Poems by John Keats is published. It is the first publication by Keats.
4 March 1817 After a secret parliamentary committee reports that insurrection is imminent, habeas corpus is suspended in Britain.
James Monroe replaces James Madison as President of the United States.
6 March 1817 At Olinda, Brazil, local officers being arrested for plotting independence revolt and cause Governor Caetano Pinto de Miranda Montenegro to seek refuge in Brum Harbor Castle.
7 March 1817 Rebels take control of Recife, Brazil.
10 March 1817 About 5,000 workers gather in Manchester to march to London to present grievances to the Prince-Regent. They are protesting the downturn in the textile industry after the Napoleonic wars, and the suspension of habeas corpus. They will get as far as Stockport before being dispersed by the authorities. Because they carry their blankets with them, they are know as “blanketeers.”
12 March 1817 John Cashman is hanged before the gun shop he looted in London during the disturbances last 2 December. His case has become a cause celebre. Cashman is a nine-times wounded veteran of the Royal Navy, unable to make his way in the post-war world and denied his back pay and prize money by the Admiralty. Working class people see him as one of them, wronged by the establishment, and throng to see him off.
17 March 1817 After five days of mourners come to pay their respects, the body of John Cashman is laid to rest in Stepney Churchyard. “A vast multitude” accompany the remains to the cemetery.
20 March 1817 Johann Simon Mayr (53) is elected to the Ateneo of Bergamo.
22 March 1817 Mennone e Zemira, a dramma per musica by Simon Mayr (53) to words of Rossi, is performed for the first time, in Teatro San Carlo, Naples.
31 March 1817 The British Parliament passes a law prohibiting “seditious” meetings.
5 April 1817 Rebel troops occupy Concepción, Chile.
Loyalists return to capture Barcelona, Venezuela, killing every rebel they find.
11 April 1817 Rebels defeat Spanish and loyalist troops at San Félix, Venezuela. After the battle they hunt down and kill every enemy soldier they can find.
14 April 1817 Incidental music to Müllner’s play König Yngard by Carl Maria von Weber (30) is performed for the first time, in the Dresden Hoftheater.
15 April 1817 Spanish anti-monarchist Francisco Javier Mina y Larrea arrives at Soto la Marina, Mexico with 500 men.
16 April 1817 The Principality of Birkenfeld is created in personal union with Oldenburg.
28 April 1817 Under the Rush-Bagot Agreement, Great Britain and the United States agree to limit naval forces on Lake Erie and begin the demilitarization of the border between the United States and Canada. This will create the longest undefended border in the world.
2 May 1817 Arianna e Bacco, a cantata for solo voices, chorus and orchestra by Johann Simon Mayr (53), is performed for the first time, in the Scuola Musicale, Bergamo.
3 May 1817 Greatly depressed and highly agitated, Samuel Wesley (51) goes to stay with his mother. His sister Sarah is so worried about him, she hires someone to watch him.
5 May 1817 Spanish ships begin bombarding rebels within Concepción, Chile. Royalists attack the rebels at Gavilán Hill, northwest of the city, but are destroyed by the defenders.
6 May 1817 Imagining himself to be chased by creditors sent by his ex-wife, Samuel Wesley (51) throws himself out of an upper-story window of his mother’s house. Although sustaining serious injuries, he will survive.
7 May 1817 Ayahito replaces Tomohito as Emperor of Japan.
10 May 1817 Johanna van Beethoven signs an agreement to make large payments to her brother-in-law Ludwig (46) for the support of her son Karl.
14 May 1817 Antonio Salieri (66) is appointed the first director of the new Vienna Singakademie founded by the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde.
17 May 1817 A rebel army marching south from Recife is defeated at Serinhão
19 May 1817 Loyalist forces retake the city of Recife, Brazil.
23 May 1817 Having recovered sufficiently from his suicide attempt, Samuel Wesley (51) is moved from his mother’s house to a temporary abode in Chapel Street, London to continue his treatment.
31 May 1817 Gioachino Rossini’s (25) melodramma La gazza ladra to words of Gherardini after d’Aubigny and Caigniez is performed for the first time, in Teatro alla Scala, Milan and is “greeted with almost hysterical delight.”
3 June 1817 Samuel Wesley (51) moves to Southend where he will stay for a month continuing his recovery from a suicide attempt.
9 June 1817 200-300 workingmen from several Derbyshire towns, armed with rudimentary weapons, march to Nottingham to protest unemployment, low wages, and high prices. With an informant in their midst, they are dispersed at Nottingham and later arrested. The event will be known as the Pentrich Rising.
Sinfonia concertanta by Gaetano Donizetti (19) is performed for the first time, in the Bologna Liceo.
11 June 1817 Publication of the Variations for Piano op.76 by Johann Nepomuk Hummel (38) is announced in the Wiener Zeitung.
16 June 1817 Manfred by George Gordon, Lord Byron is published in London.
Royal Assent is granted to the Poor Employment Act. It is designed to give loans to anyone who can show that the money will be used to create employment.
19 June 1817 Concertino in G for english horn and orchestra by Gaetano Donizetti (19) is performed for the first time, in Bergamo.
23 June 1817 João Paulo Bezerra replaces António de Araújo de Azevedo, conde da Barca as Secretary of State (prime minister) of Portugal, in Brazil.
4 July 1817 Work begins on the Erie Canal, designed to connect the Great Lakes with the Atlantic.
19 July 1817 Romilda e Costanza, a melodramma semiserio by Giacomo Meyerbeer (25) to words of Rossi, is performed for the first time, in Teatro Nuovo, Padua.
26 July 1817 46 men of the Pentrich Rising of last 9 June are indicted for high treason.
1 August 1817 The Vienna Singakademie, with director Antonio Salieri (66), opens its doors. The first students are twelve female and twelve male voice students.
3 August 1817 Royalists holding Guayana la Vieja, Venezuela attempt to escape down the Orinoco but are destroyed by rebel forces. Bolívar now controls the entire river.
7 August 1817 The Lyceum, or English Opera House, puts on a production for the first time illuminated by gas light.
9 August 1817 Leopold IV replaces Leopold III as Duke of Anhalt-Dessau.
23 August 1817 William Kingston meets for five hours with his friend Samuel Wesley (51) at Blacklands House, the lunatic asylum in Blacklands Terrace, Chelsea. Wesley does not feel his actions of earlier this year warrant his treatment as a lunatic.
3 September 1817 Lowell Mason (25) marries Abigail Gregory, daughter of an innkeeper, in Westborough, Massachusetts.
6 September 1817 Drury Lane Theatre, London opens, illuminated by gas light.
8 September 1817 Covent Garden Theatre opens, illuminated by gas light.
17 September 1817 A treaty between Great Britain and Spain opens the West Indies to trade with Great Britain.
18 September 1817 Incidental music for Die Ahnfrau, a play by Grillparzer, by Carl Maria von Weber (30), is performed for the first time, in the Dresden Hoftheater.
23 September 1817 In a treaty with Great Britain, Spain agrees to end the slave trade. It will be loosely enforced.
JJ Berzelius writes to Alexander Marcet that a new element, lithium, has been discovered in his Stockholm laboratory by Johan August Arfwedson.
27 September 1817 An Herrn Franz Schubert, a poem by Franz Xaver Schlechta, appears in the Wiener allgemeine Theaterzeitung. It is the first time that Schubert’s (20) name appears in a periodical.
18 October 1817 The Wartburg Festival in Jena, to commemorate the anniversaries of Luther’s death and the Battle of Leipzig, reveals the revolutionary sentiments of German students. 400 students from twelve universities listen to speeches and swear oaths. They light an enormous bonfire into which they throw symbols of everything they hate, especially the final act of the Congress of Vienna.
Étienne-Nicolas Méhul dies of tuberculosis in Paris, aged 54 years, three months and 26 days.
La clochette, ou Le diable page, an opéra féerie by Louis Joseph Ferdinand Hérold (26) to words of Théaulon de Lambert, is performed for the first time, at the Théâtre Feydeau, Paris.
22 October 1817 A Grand Bacchanale for orchestra by Gaspare Spontini (42) is performed for the first time, in a performance of Les danaïdes by Antonio Salieri (67).
25 October 1817 A rebel force is annihilated at Venadito Ranch near Guanajuato, Mexico.
26 October 1817 Heinrich August Marschner (22) marries Emilie von Cerva, daughter of a businessman and city council member, in Pressburg (Bratislava).
29 October 1817 L’Accoglienza J.221, a cantata by Carl Maria von Weber (30), is performed for the first time, in Dresden to celebrate the wedding of Princess Maria Carolina of Saxony to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Since the wedding has been postponed several times, the court music director has been required to postpone his own wedding several times.
4 November 1817 Carl Maria von Weber (30) marries the celebrated soprano Caroline Brandt in Prague.
5 November 1817 Daulat Rao Sindhia is forced to sign the Treaty of Gwalior by the British. He is required to aid the British against the Pindaris. On the same day, the Third Maratha War begins between the British and Peshwa Baji Rao II at Khadki (in present Maharashtra).
6 November 1817 Milosh Obrenovic becomes Prince of Serbia replacing George Petrovic who died last 25 July.
After 50 hours of labor and giving birth to a dead child, Princess Charlotte Augusta, the only child of the British Prince Regent, dies at Claremont at the age of 21.
7 November 1817 Three leaders of the Pentrich Rising of last 9 June, Jeremiah Brandreth, William Turner, and Isaac Ludlum, are executed at Derby. They are hanged, then beheaded.
8 November 1817 French Guiana, occupied by Portugal since 1809, is returned to France.
11 November 1817 Armida, a dramma by Gioachino Rossini (25) to words of Schmidt after Tasso, is performed for the first time, in Teatro San Carlo, Naples. Both audience and critics do not approve.
12 November 1817 Within a month of his arrival in Lexington, Kentucky, Anton Philipp Heinrich (36) directs a concert of music by notable composers including Mozart (†25), Haydn (†8) and Beethoven (46). Heinrich also performs solo music for violin.
14 November 1817 Felix Mendelssohn (8) dedicates a piano arrangement he made of the overture to The Marriage of Figaro to his sister Fanny on her twelfth birthday.
15 November 1817 Hold ist der Cyanendranz, a song for solo voices and chorus by Carl Maria von Weber (30), is performed for the first time, as part of Der Weinberg an der Elbe, a play by Kind, in the Dresden Hoftheater.
19 November 1817 Gaspare Spontini (43) becomes a naturalized citizen of France by order of King Louis XVIII.
22 November 1817 The Duchy of Lucca is created under Duchess Maria Luisa.
27 November 1817 Nagpuri forces are defeated by the British at Sitabuldi fort in Nagpur.
The British Prince-Regent issues a proclamation forbidding any British subject from participating in the wars between Spain and its American colonies. Too many Britons are joining the rebel cause. The decree is widely ignored.
29 November 1817 Adrien Boieldieu (41) is elected to the French Institute, replacing Étienne-Nicolas Méhul (†0).
Tomás António de Vila-Nova Portugal replaces João Paulo Bezerra as Secretary of State (prime minister) of Portugal, in Brazil.
1 December 1817 The Fifteenth Congress of the United States convenes in Washington. Voting for the House of Representatives took place between April 1816 and August 1817. Republicans gained 27 seats to hold a 146-39 seat advantage over the Federalists. In the Senate, their advantage is 30-12.
2 December 1817 Loyalist forces sweep away rebels at Hogaza, Venezuela.
6 December 1817 Loyalists in Talcahuano, Chile successfully repel a rebel attack led by Bernardo O’Higgins.
10 December 1817 Mississippi becomes the 20th state of the United States.
16 December 1817 US President James Monroe authorizes his troops to pursue Seminoles as far into Spanish territory as necessary.
17 December 1817 The Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung of Leipzig publishes Beethoven’s own metronome markings for his eight symphonies.
20 December 1817 British forces defeat the Marathas at Mahidpur (near Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh), sealing the fate of the Maratha Confederacy.
After a honeymoon of six weeks, Carl Maria von Weber (31) and his wife, Caroline Brandt, arrive at their new home in Dresden.
Northanger Abbey and Persuasion by the late Jane Austen are published as a set.
26 December 1817 Lanassa, a melodramma eroico by Johann Simon Mayr (54) to words of Rossi and Merelli after Lemierre, is performed for the first time, in Teatro La Fenice, Venice.
27 December 1817 Broadwood and Sons of London send a new six-octave piano to Ludwig van Beethoven (47) in Vienna.
Gioachino Rossini’s (25) dramma Adelaide di Borgogna to words of Schmidt is performed for the first time, in Teatro Argentina, Rome. It is greeted with almost unanimous disdain.
28 December 1817 William Wordsworth and John Keats meet for the first time, at the home of the painter Benjamin Robert Haydon in St. John’s Wood near London.
©2004-2012 Paul Scharfenberger
7 July 2012
Last Updated (Saturday, 07 July 2012 04:50)