1836
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1 January 1836 A letter from Robert Schumann (25) breaking their engagement reaches Ernestine von Fricken at Schloss Buldern. He asks her to send his ring back, which she will do.
3 January 1836 Louis Spohr (51) marries Marianne Pfeiffer, the sister of his late friend Carl Pfeiffer, in Kassel. It is his second marriage, her first. She is 28.
12 January 1836 After the sixth performance of Maria Stuarda by Gaetano Donizetti (38), Rainer, Archduke of Austria, the Austrian governor of Lombardy bans the work owing to profanity and other abominations contained therein.
14 January 1836 After forbidding his daughter Clara (16) to have any contact with Robert Schumann (25), Friedrich Wieck carries her off to Dresden to forget about him.
23 January 1836 Actéon, an opéra comique by Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (53) to words of Scribe, is performed for the first time, at Théâtre de la Bourse, Paris.
29 January 1836 Das Schloss am Aetna, a grosse romantische Oper by Heinrich August Marschner (40) to words of Klingemann, is performed for the first time, in Leipzig Stadttheater. A bad performance produces a collossal flop.
2 February 1836 A French government decree is issued creating Gaetano Donizetti (38) a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.
4 February 1836 Belisario, a tragedia lirica by Gaetano Donizetti (38) to words of Cammarano after von Schenk translated by Marchionni, is performed for the first time, at Teatro La Fenice, Venice. The work is well received.
5 February 1836 French Prime Minister the Duc de Broglie agrees to pay the spoliation claims as required under the 1831 treaty with the US.
6 February 1836 Publication of John Field’s (53) Nocturnes nos.14-16 is advertised in Bibliographie de France.
7 February 1836 While in Zwickau on account of his mother’s death, Robert Schumann (25) secretly visits Clara Wieck (16) in Dresden. Over the next week he will open his heart to her and profess his love. She reciprocates.
8 February 1836 The first series of Sketches by Boz by Charles Dickens is published. It includes several previously published works and three new items. It is his first book in print.
16 February 1836 Verdicts are handed down in the attempted assassination of King Louis-Philippe of France last July. Three defendants are sentenced to death. One receives 20 years. A fifth is acquitted.
19 February 1836 Joseph Fieschi, Pierre Morey and Théodore Pepin are executed by guillotine for their part in the attempted assassination of King Louis-Philippe of France last July. Hours before his death, Pepin reveals his membership in a hitherto unknown radical republican group, the Société des Familles.
Spanish Prime Minister Mendizábal orders the closure of all monasteries and convents in the country.
22 February 1836 Marie Joseph Louis Adolphe Thiers replaces Achille Charles Léonce Victor, Duc de Broglie as Prime Minister of France.
23 February 1836 3,000 Mexican troops surround 182 Texan rebels in the Alamo mission at San Antonio de Bexar.
25 February 1836 Samuel Colt receives a US patent for a revolver, colloquially known as a six-shooter.
27 February 1836 Giuseppe Verdi (22) is examined in Parma for the post of maestro di musica in Busseto.
Seminoles under Osceola defeat a US relief force marching inland from Tampa Bay at the Withlacoochee River.
28 February 1836 Hymne an den Unendlichen D.232 for vocal quartet and piano by Franz Schubert (†7) to words of Schiller is performed for the first time, in the Vienna Redoutensaal.
29 February 1836 Les Huguenots, a grand opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer (44) to words of Scribe and Deschamps, is performed for the first time, at the Paris Opéra. It will be one of the most successful productions ever staged at the Opéra with 1,126 performances in Paris over the next hundred years, and breaking all box office records. In the audience are Hector Berlioz (32) and Harriet Smithson. It will become Meyerbeer’s most performed work, with thousands of performances throughout the world.
2 March 1836 Residents of Texas declare their independence from Mexico. A constituent assembly names David Burnet as president and Lorenzo de Zavala as vice-president.
5 March 1836 Giuseppe Verdi (22) is appointed maestro di musica in Busseto.
6 March 1836 After a two week battle, Mexican forces overrun the Texan defenders of the Alamo, San Antonio de Bexar. They take no prisoners.
8 March 1836 The faculty of the University of Leipzig votes to confer an honorary Doctor of Philosophy degree on Felix Mendelssohn. See 20 March 1836.
12 March 1836 Publication of Die Schule des Fugenspiels op.400 for piano by Carl Czerny (45) is announced in Vienna.
17 March 1836 The government of Texas proclaims a republican constitution which includes slavery.
19 March 1836 Mexican forces defeat Texans at Goliad. They take about 300 prisoners.
20 March 1836 The University of Leipzig confers an honorary Doctor of Philosophy degree on Felix Mendelssohn (27).
26 March 1836 Daniel-François-Esprit Auber’s (54) opéra comique Les chaperons blanc to words of Scribe is performed for the first time, at Théâtre de la Bourse, Paris.
27 March 1836 Mexican troops execute the 300 prisoners taken at Goliad on 19 March along with 100 others.
29 March 1836 Richard Wagner’s (22) grosse komische Oper Das Liebesverbot, oder Die Novize von Palermo to the composer’s words after Shakespeare is performed for the first time, in the Magdeburg Stadttheater, conducted by the composer. On the same day, an anonymous article appears in Robert Schumann’s (25) Neue Zeitschrift für Musik in support of Wagner’s opera. It is written by Wagner.
30 March 1836 Samuel Wesley (70) writes to William Crotch (60), sending compositions by his son, Samuel Sebastian Wesley (25), in an attempt to gain a Bachelor of Music for him. Nothing will come of it.
A second performance of Richard Wagner’s (22) Das Liebesverbot has to be cancelled when fist fights break out among the cast on stage before curtain. One combatant produces a knife but no one is seriously injured. See 11 April 1836.
31 March 1836 The first monthly installment of Charles Dickens’ first novel, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, is published.
11 April 1836 Hoping to make the acquaintance of Felix Mendelssohn (27) and gain a wider audience for his music, Richard Wagner (22) sends Mendelssohn a copy of his Symphony in C major. (Mendelssohn seems not to have responded and the score has never been found.)
Das Liebesverbot by Richard Wagner (22) is given a second performance in Magdeburg but the fiasco of 30 March has caused a scandal and only three people show up to form an audience.
16 April 1836 Giuseppe Verdi (22) is formally engaged to Margherita Barezzi in the office of the mayor of Busseto.
17 April 1836 Overture in D D.556 by Franz Schubert (†7) is performed publicly for the first time, at the Vienna Musikverein.
20 April 1836 Giuseppe Verdi (22) signs a contract to be maestro di musica in Busseto, a position that requires him to reside in Busseto ten months of every year, give vocal, instrumental, counterpoint and composition lessons and conduct the Philharmonic Society.
Prince Johann I of Liechtenstein dies and is succeeded by his son, Alois II.
Antonio José de Sousa, Manuel e Meneses Severim de Noronha, duque de Terceira, marques e conde de Vila-Flor replaces José Jorge Loureiro as Prime Minister of Portugal.
Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (31) petitions Alyeksandr Mikhailovich Gedeonov, Imperial Theatre director, to accept A Life for the Tsar for production.
An aria and chorus for Bakhturin’s play The Moldavian Girl and the Gypsy Girl by Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (31) are performed for the first time, in St. Petersburg.
21 April 1836 Texan forces under Sam Houston defeat Mexicans at San Jacinto. 630 Mexicans are killed, some while trying to surrender. General Santa Anna is captured.
1 May 1836 Felix Mendelssohn (27) departs Leipzig to direct the Niederrheinisches Musikfest in Düsseldorf. While stopping in Frankfurt, he will meet Cécile Jeanrenaud, the daughter of a Protestant minister.
4 May 1836 Giuseppe Verdi (22) marries Margherita Barezzi, daughter of Antonio Barezzi, a grocer and Verdi’s patron, in the Chiesa Collegiata di San Bartolomeo, Busseto.
Felix Mendelssohn (27) arrives in Frankfurt on his way to Düsseldorf to direct the Niederrheinisches Musikfest. Upon his arrival he is introduced to several people, including a young chorus member Cécile Jeanrenaud. She will eventually become his wife.
13 May 1836 Francis Baily first observes and documents Baily’s Beads during a solar eclipse.
15 May 1836 Francisco Xavier Istúriz y Montero replaces Juan Alvarez Mendizábal as Prime Minister of Spain.
19 May 1836 United States troops in Alabama begin rounding up Creeks into concentration camps.
22 May 1836 St. Paul, an oratorio by Felix Mendelssohn (27) to words of Schubring after the Bible, is performed for the first time, at the Niederrheinisches Musikfest, Düsseldorf, the composer conducting. This performance, and others at the festival, assure the international stature of Mendelssohn.
1 June 1836 Gaetano Donizetti’s (38) melodramma giocoso Il campanello di notte to words of the composer after Brunswick, Troin, and Lhérie is performed for the first time, at Teatro Nuovo, Naples, to a good reception.
6 June 1836 King Anton of Saxony dies in Dresden and is succeeded by his nephew Friedrich August II.
8 June 1836 Robert Schumann’s Piano Sonata op.11 “dedicated to Clara by Florestan and Eusebius” is published on the composer’s 26th birthday.
15 June 1836 Arkansas becomes the 25th state of the United States.
16 June 1836 The London Working Men’s Association is formed in Covent Garden, beginning the Chartist Movement.
25 June 1836 Louis Alibaud, an unemployed man, fires at a carriage carrying King Louis-Philippe of France just outside the Tuileries. No one is hurt. Alibaud is captured.
1 July 1836 Henry James Hungerford, having died without children, the US Congress authorizes the acceptance of the gift of Hungerford’s uncle, James Smithson, who died 27 June 1829.
2 July 1836 Fromental Halévy (37) is elected to the French Institute.
11 July 1836 Louis Alibaud is executed by guillotine for the attempted assassination of King Louis-Philippe on 25 June.
Antônio Carlos Gomes is born in Campinas, Brazil, the son of a bandmaster.
13 July 1836 Felix Mendelssohn (27), in Leipzig, mentions in a letter for the first time “an especially beautiful girl whom I should love to see again.” She is his future wife, Cécile Jeanrenaud.
20 July 1836 British settlement of South Australia begins with the establishment of a colony on Kangaroo Island.
21 July 1836 The Champlain and Saint Lawrence Railroad opens between La Prairie on the St. Lawrence River and St-Jean on the Richelieu River. It is the first railway in Canada.
28 July 1836 Frédéric Chopin (26) arrives in Marienbad (Mariánské Lázne) from Paris. His sweetheart, Maria Wodzinska, and her mother are staying there.
29 July 1836 King Louis-Philippe of France dedicates the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
12 August 1836 At the Palace of La Granja de San Idelfonso, members of the Royal Guard force the regent Queen María Cristina of Spain to accept a radical ministry and restore the Constitution of 1812 and the national militia.
13 August 1836 The Tithe Commutation Act receives Royal Assent from King William. It replaces the practice of paying tithes in kind with monetary payments.
14 August 1836 Spanish Conservative leader General Quesada is murdered in Madrid. José María Calatrava replaces Francsco Xavier Istúriz y Montero as Prime Minister of Spain.
20 August 1836 The Prisoners’ Counsel Act receives Royal Assent from King William. It ensures that those charged with a felony shall have the right to counsel.
21 August 1836 Betly, ossia La capanna svizzera, a dramma giocosa by Gaetano Donizetti (38) to his own words after Scribe and Mélesville, is performed for the first time, in Teatro Nuovo, Naples.
1 September 1836 Paris police capture eleven members of a cell of the Société des Familles, a radical republican group, along with a cache of ammunition and 13 daggers.
Christian missionaries Marcus Whitman and Henry Spalding and their wives arrive at Fort Walla Walla. They have traveled overland for seven months from upstate New York. This begins the American settlement of the Oregon Territory.
7 September 1836 Emperor Ferdinand of Austria becomes King Ferdinand V of Bohemia.
Louis Matthieu, Comte Molé replaces Marie Joseph Louis Adolphe Thiers as Prime Minister of France. Thiers resigned after his proposal of an invasion of Spain in support of the liberal Queen María Cristina was refused by King Louis-Philippe.
9 September 1836 At the Krontal spa north of Frankfurt, Felix Mendelssohn (27) proposes marriage to Cecile Jeanrenaud. She agrees.
Frédéric Chopin (26) proposes marriage to Maria Wodzinska, the sister of his boyhood friends, in Dresden. He is given some grounds for hope. (This may not have happened)
Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson is published in Boston.
10 September 1836 José Manuel Inácio da Cunha Faro Meneses Portugal da Gama Carneiro e Sousa, condé de Luminares replaces Antonio José de Sousa, Manuel e Meneses Severim de Noronha, duque de Terceira, marques e conde de Vila-Flor as Prime Minister of Portugal.
Frédéric Chopin (26) departs Marienbad (Mariánské Lázne) where he saw Maria Wodzinska and her mother. He may or may not have proposed to her. Chopin’s destination is Leipzig. He will never see Maria Wodzinska again.
12 September 1836 A visit by Frédéric Chopin (26) to Robert Schumann (26) today in Leipzig inspires Schumann to complete his Études symphoniques. Chopin, Schumann and Clara Wieck (15) spend most of the day at the piano.
28 September 1836 The French metric system is introduced by law in Greece.
1 October 1836 Lowell Mason (44) signs a new contract with the Boston Handel and Haydn Society. Mason will receive all profits from the church music collection after $2,000 for two years. For the next two years he will receive one-third of the profits, the society two-thirds.
2 October 1836 HMS Beagle returns to England after a four-and-a-half year voyage. Among the travelers is Charles Darwin.
16 October 1836 Franz Liszt (24), Marie d’Agoult and their daughter Blandine return to Paris from Geneva, taking up residence in the Hôtel de France.
18 October 1836 The Imperial censors return Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka’s (32) A Life for the Tsar to the office of Imperial Theatres, requiring certain changes be made.
19 October 1836 The inaugural meeting of the Church Rate Abolition Society takes place in London. They desire to end tax support of local churches.
21 October 1836 The Trauerkantate on the death of Maria Malibran for chorus and orchestra by Otto Nicolai (25), to words possibly by Bonnetti, is performed for the first time, in Bologna.
22 October 1836 Sam Houston is inaugurated the first president of the Republic of Texas.
24 October 1836 Gioachino Rossini (44) leaves Paris for Italy. He will not move back to the French capital for 19 years.
A soiree takes place at the Paris apartment of Franz Liszt (25) and his mistress Marie d’Agoult to celebrate their recent return from Switzerland. Among the guests are Frédéric Chopin (26) and Aurore Dupin Dudevant (George Sand) who meet for the first time. It was Sand who repeatedly asked Liszt to arrange the meeting. She appears in men’s clothing, as is her wont. Their first impressions are quite different. Chopin finds Sand “repulsive” while Sand finds Chopin “noble.”
Alonzo Dwight Phillips of Springfield, Massachusetts receives a patent for friction matches.
25 October 1836 In the presence of the royal family and 150,000 others, the obelisk of Luxor is raised in the new Place de la Concorde.
28 October 1836 The federation of Peru and Bolivia is proclaimed by Marshal Andrés de Santa Cruz.
30 October 1836 Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte attempts to overthrow the French monarchy in an unsuccessful bloodless putsch in Strasbourg. He will be banished to the United States by King Louis-Philippe.
1 November 1836 Protesting against forced removal, Seminoles in Florida under Osceola begin an armed struggle.
2 November 1836 The Imperial censors approve of Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka’s (32) A Life for the Tsar.
4 November 1836 José Bernardino de Portugal e Castro, marques de Valença, conde de Vimioso replaces José Manuel Inácio da Cunha Faro Meneses Portugal da Gama Carneiro e Sousa, condé de Luminares as Prime Minister of Portugal.
Giacomo Meyerbeer’s (45) opera Robert le diable is produced in Calcutta, in French.
5 November 1836 Bernardo de Sá Nogueira de Figueiredo, visconde e barão de Sá da Bandeira replaces José Bernardino de Portugal e Castro, marques de Valença, conde de Vimioso as Prime Minister of Portugal.
7 November 1836 The Euterpe Concert Society performs Hector Berlioz’ (32) Les Francs-Juges in Leipzig. It is the first time that Berlioz’ music has been heard in Germany.
When François Letellier, the organist of St. Louis Cathedral, New Orleans is required to fill in for a missing bass soloist at high mass, he calls on his pupil, Louis Moreau Gottschalk (7) to take his place at the manuals while he plays the pedals. None of the congregation can tell the difference.
11 November 1836 Feeling threatened by the recent confederation, Chile declares war on Peru-Bolivia.
18 November 1836 William Schwenck Gilbert is born in London.
19 November 1836 Gaetano Donizetti’s (38) dramma lirico L’assedio di Calais to words of Cammarano after DuBelloy is performed for the first time, at Teatro San Carlo, Naples. The work, produced for the name day of the Neapolitan queen mother, is well received.
22 November 1836 Nicolò Paganini (54) is elected a member of the Philharmonic Society of Casal Montferrato.
24 November 1836 Richard Wagner (23) marries Christine Wilhelmine (Minna) Planer, an actress, in Tragheim near Königsberg (Kaliningrad).
28 November 1836 A royal charter is granted to University College, London.
4 December 1836 The manifesto for the Democratic Society in Poland is published. It calls for an independent, democratic republic.
Daniel Read dies in New Haven, Connecticut, aged 79 years and 18 days.
7 December 1836 A month of voting in the United States presidential election concluding today ensures the victory of Vice President Martin Van Buren over several Whig Party candidates including former Senator and General William Henry Harrison, Senator Daniel Webster and Senator Hugh White.
9 December 1836 A Life for the Tsar, an opera by Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (32) to words of Rosen, Sollogub, Kukolnik and Zhukovsky, is performed for the first time, in the Bolshoy Theatre, St. Petersburg before Tsar Nikolai and other members of the royal family. “The opera was a complete success and I was in a state of intoxication.” Glinka is called to the Imperial box to meet the Tsar. The night will be viewed as the birth of Russia as an art music power.
10 December 1836 The Lisbon government prohibits the slave trade in all Portuguese dominions, although they have no real power to enforce their decree.
12 December 1836 Teatro La Fenice in Venice is almost totally destroyed by fire.
13 December 1836 Frédéric Chopin (26) sees George Sand for the third time, at a social gathering in his Paris home. Instead of her usual men's clothes, she wears a dress of white and red, the Polish colors. By this time, Chopin is smitten. Chopin and Franz Liszt (25) play a Sonata for piano-four hands by Moscheles. Also attending are Marie d’Agoult, Eugène Delcroix, and Heinrich Heine.
15 December 1836 In a benefit for the actor Frédéric Lemaître at the Théâtre des Variétés, Harriet Smithson plays Ophelia in the mad scene from Hamlet. It is her last performance before a paying audience.
17 December 1836 The second series of Sketches by Boz by Charles Dickens is published.
21 December 1836 L’ambassadrice, an opéra comique by Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (54) to words of Scribe, is performed for the first time, at Théâtre de la Bourse, Paris.
25 December 1836 The throne of Austria is placed in regency of a Ministers of State Conference because of the mental illness of Emperor Ferdinand I.
At a dinner to honor Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (32), Alyeksandr Pushkin improvises a stanza on the honoree. Glinka later sets it, and others performed this evening, to music.
27 December 1836 François Meunier, an unemployed man, fires into a carriage carrying King Louis-Philippe and three of his sons on their way to the opening of Parliament. A bystander attempts to stop Meunier and the bullet enters the carriage harmlessly. Aside from a few cuts from flying glass, nobody is hurt. Palace guards instantly seize Meunier. He will be sentenced to deportation.
28 December 1836 British colonists arrive on the mainland of South Australia to found a settlement at Holdfast Bay.
29 December 1836 Johann Baptist Schenk dies in Vienna, aged 83 years and 29 days.
©2004-2012 Paul Scharfenberger
9 July 2012
Last Updated (Monday, 09 July 2012 05:50)