1839
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1 January 1839 Robert Schumann (28) discovers the score of Franz Schubert’s (†10) Great C Major Symphony at the home of Schubert’s brother, Ferdinand. See 21 March 1839.
2 January 1839 Louis Daguerre takes the first photographic image of the Moon. Unfortunately it will be lost two months from now when Daguerre’s studio is destroyed by fire.
4 January 1839 The first large group of Cherokee arrive in Oklahoma after enduring the Trail of Tears from Georgia.
6 January 1839 Robert Schumann (28) writes to Raimund Härtel from Vienna, informing him that he has had several meetings with Ferdinand Schubert and has found many unpublished or unknown works of Franz Schubert (†10): “operas, four grand Masses, four or five symphonies, and much else.”
A massive wind and rain storm strikes Ireland over the night of 6-7 January. 250-300 people are killed, structures are demolished, floods occur and £500,000 in shipping are lost.
7 January 1839 Louis Daguerre presents his photographic process to the French Academy of Science.
8 January 1839 Clara Wieck (19) departs Leipzig for a concert tour to Paris with Claudine Dufourd, a French woman hired by her father to accompany her.
9 January 1839 Incidental music to Birnbaum’s play Der Matrose by Louis Spohr (54) is performed for the first time, in Kassel.
John Knowles Paine is born in Portland, Maine, the second of five children born to Jacob Small Paine, a craftsman of umbrellas and musical instruments, also a music publisher and distributor of sheet music and pianos, and Rebecca Beebe Downes
10 January 1839 Notre-Dame des orages, a cantata for two voices and piano by César Franck (16) to words of the Comte de Pastoret, is performed for the first time, in the Salle Erard, Paris.
16 January 1839 Gesang am Grabe by Richard Wagner (25) to words of von Brackel is performed for the first time, in the Jakobi-Kirchhof, Riga.
19 January 1839 The British East India Company conquers Aden.
Philipp replaces Ludwig as Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg.
20 January 1839 Chilean forces defeat Peru-Bolivia at Yungay, 60 km southeast of Antofagasta. This defeat will lead to the dissolution of the union of Peru and Bolivia.
22 January 1839 Frédéric Chopin (28) finally receives shipment of his piano on Mallorca after it took three weeks and a great deal of money to clear customs. He may now complete revision of his Preludes op.28.
27 January 1839 Jacques Offenbach (19) gives his first public concert (along with eleven others), in the music rooms of Pape’s instrument shop, Paris.
28 January 1839 La gipsy, a ballet by Ambroise Thomas (27), François Benoist, and Marco Aurelio Marliani, to a scenario by Saint-Georges after Cervantes, is performed for the first time, at the Paris Opéra.
31 January 1839 A paper explaining the negative photography process developed by English scientist WH Fox Talbot is read to the Royal Society in London.
4 February 1839 A national convention of chartists, called the General Convention of the Industrious Classes, meets in London.
John George Lambton, the Earl of Durham presents his work, Report on the Affairs of British North America, to the British Colonial Office. He recommends that Upper and Lower Canada be united, and immigration from the British Isles be increased. He also suggests that power be devolved to the local populace.
6 February 1839 Giuseppe Verdi (25), his wife and son leave Busseto for Milan.
Clara Wieck (19) arrives in Paris from Leipzig, having traveled only with a French woman previously unknown to her. She will stay there for six months, eventually living with her friend, Emilie List.
9 February 1839 Hector Berlioz (35) is appointed deputy curator of the Paris Conservatoire Library. The appointment and salary are retroactive to 1 January.
From an expedition led by English explorer John Balleny, Captain Thomas Freeman lands on what are now called the Balleny Islands just long enough to collect some rocks. It is the first landing south of the Antarctic Circle.
11 February 1839 After barely two months in Mallorca, Frédéric Chopin (28), George Sand and her children leave Valldemosa. Their stay was generally disappointing and caused injury to Chopin’s health. He is coughing blood on a regular basis.
12 February 1839 Through the influence of Gaspare Spontini (64), Nicolò Paganini (56) is named a member of the Santa Cecilia Society in Rome.
13 February 1839 The lawyer Heinrich Blumner dies in Leipzig leaving a bequest of 20,000 thaler. Through the intercession of Felix Mendelssohn (30), the money will be used to found the Leipzig Conservatory.
Frédéric Chopin (28), George Sand and her children leave Palma aboard a boat with 100 pigs making for Barcelona.
Guatemala secedes from Central America.
14 February 1839 In the harbor of Barcelona, George Sand manages to get Frédéric Chopin (28) and her children on to a French ship. There the ship’s doctor succeeds in stopping his hemorrhaging from the lungs.
16 February 1839 String Quartet no.3 op.44/1 by Felix Mendelssohn (30) is performed for the first time, in Leipzig.
18 February 1839 Carlist generals Juan Antonio Guergué, Francisco García, and Pablo Sanz Baeza are executed along with three others by General Rafael Maroto, the leading Carlist moderate in Spain, at Estrella. Maroto accuses them of plotting against him.
20 February 1839 The United States Congress outlaws dueling in the District of Columbia.
Simon Mayr (75) reads the first part of his History of the Oratorio and the Mysteries to the Ateneo, Bergamo.
21 February 1839 A setting of Psalm 95 for solo voices, chorus and orchestra by Felix Mendelssohn (30) is performed for the first time, in Leipzig.
22 February 1839 Frédéric Chopin (28), George Sand and her children board ship in Barcelona for Marseille.
24 February 1839 Frédéric Chopin (28), George Sand and her children reach Marseille. Writes Sand, “A month more and we would have died in Spain--he of melancholy and disgust and I of rage and indignation.” They will stay in Marseille for three months to give him time to recuperate.
Uruguay declares war on Argentina claiming interference in internal affairs.
2 March 1839 Pascal et Chambord, a vaudeville by Jacques Offenbach (19) to words of Bourgeois and Brisebarre, is performed for the first time, at the Palais-Royal, Paris. It is a flop.
9 March 1839 The Prussian government limits the work week for children to 51 hours.
Mexico agrees to compensation for France, and French troops begin to withdraw from the country.
11 March 1839 Felix Mendelssohn’s (30) Ruy Blas overture op.95 is performed for the first time, in Leipzig.
21 March 1839 Modest Petrovich Musorgsky is born in Karevo, Pskov district south of St. Petersburg, the fourth and youngest child of Pyotr Alyekseyevich Musorgsky, a well-to-do landowner and Yulia Ivanovna Chirikova, daughter of a middle-class landowner.
Symphony in C major “Great” D.944 by Franz Schubert (†10) is performed for the first time, in Leipzig, conducted by Felix Mendelssohn (30). The score was found three months ago when Robert Schumann (28) visited Schubert’s brother Ferdinand in Vienna. See 1 January 1839.
Clara Wieck (19) makes her Paris debut in the Salle Erard. The same evening she plays for Paris society at the home of Pierre Zimmerman, a professor of piano at the Conservatoire. She creates a “sensation.”
22 March 1839 This is the date inscribed on the first composition by Camille Saint-Saëns (3), a piano piece.
24 March 1839 Imperial Commissioner Lin Tse-hsü orders the arrest in Canton of leading British opium merchant Lawrence Dent. When the foreigners refuse to hand him over, Lin orders the opium trade halted and 350 foreigners besieged in their factories.
César Franck (16) appears as piano soloist with the Conservatoire Concerts Society, Paris, playing music of Johann Nepomuk Hummel (60).
The last groups of Cherokee arrive in Oklahoma, thus ending the Trail of Tears.
29 March 1839 The College Historical Society is founded at Trinity College, Dublin. It will one day become known as Young Ireland.
31 March 1839 An extremely laudatory review of César Franck’s (16) performance of 24 March appears in the Revue musicale written by Hector Berlioz (35).
1 April 1839 Le lac des fées, an opéra by Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (57) to words of Scribe and Mélesville, is performed for the first time, at the Paris Opéra.
4 April 1839 Robert Schumann (28) departs from Vienna to go to Zwickau. He has learned of the grave illness of his brother Eduard.
7 April 1839 Rail service begins between Dresden and Leipzig.
9 April 1839 Robert Schumann (28) arrives in Zwickau from Vienna. His brother Eduard died three days ago.
Clara Wieck (19) writes to Schumann from Paris. She has discovered that her friend Emilie List has been corresponding with her father who threatens to disinherit her and begin a lawsuit against both of them unless their relationship is broken off.
14 April 1839 Robert Schumann (28) arrives back in Leipzig from his home town of Zwickau.
15 April 1839 Les treize, an opéra comique by Fromental Halévy (39) to words of Scribe and Duport, is performed for the first time, at the Théâtre de la Bourse, Paris. The critics are mixed but it does receive 39 performances.
18 April 1839 Rodrigo Pinto Pizarro Pimentel de Almeida Carvalhais, barão da Ribeira de Sabrosa replaces Bernardo de Sá Nogueira de Figueiredo, visconde e barão de Sá Bandeira as Prime Minister of Portugal.
19 April 1839 By terms of a treaty signed in London by Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Great Britain, Austria, Prussia and Russia, Belgium and the Netherlands are formally separated. Luxembourg is made an independent grand duchy and all powers guarantee the neutrality of Belgium.
21 April 1839 A Turkish army invades Syria to oppose Mohammed Ali.
28 April 1839 Gioachino Rossini (47) agrees to become “perpetual honorary consultant” to the Liceo Musicale in Bologna.
6 May 1839 Le panier fleuri, an opéra comique by Ambroise Thomas (27) to words of de Leuven and Brunswick, is performed for the first time, at the Théâtre de Nouveautés, Paris.
9 May 1839 A third child, Daniel, is born to Franz Liszt (27) and Countess Marie d’Agoult, in Rome during their extended sojourn in Italy.
In an interview with Queen Victoria, Robert Peel, who has been named to succeed Lord Melbourne as prime minister, asks her to remove some of her ladies of the bedchamber (those related to important Whigs) and replace them with Conservative women. He is expected to lead a minority government and needs a visible sign of the Queen’s confidence. The Queen Victoria refuses. It will become known as the Bedchamber Crisis.
10 May 1839 Hector Berlioz (35) is made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. He chooses Giacomo Meyerbeer (47) as his sponsor.
Giuseppe Verdi’s (25) resignation as maestro di musica in Busseto becomes effective today.
Given the events of yesterday, Robert Peel declines to form a ministry.
12 May 1839 Republicans attempt an insurrection in Paris, arming themselves with stolen weapons and attacking the Palais de Justice and the Hôtel de Ville. They kill a small number of soldiers and hold positions until troops retake and secure the buildings in late afternoon. Barricades go up and insurgents attack various National Guard positions around the city. By 21:00, the troops have regained all positions and restored order. 94 people are dead.
22:00 Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult, duc de Dalmatie replaces Louis Matthieu, Comte Molé as Prime Minister of France.
22 May 1839 After three months in Marseille, Frédéric Chopin (29), George Sand and her children depart the city and head for her estate in Berry.
29 May 1839 Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres presents his drawing of Franz Liszt (27) to Countess Marie d’Agoult in Rome.
30 May 1839 Charles Gounod (20) is awarded the Prix de Rome for his cantata Fernand.
1 June 1839 Frédéric Chopin (29), George Sand and her children arrive from Marseille at her chateau Nohant in Berry. It is the first time he has seen it.
5 June 1839 The London and Croydon Railway is opened.
13 June 1839 Prince Milos Obrenovic I of Serbia abdicates for lack of support. He is succeeded by his son Milan Obrenovic II.
14 June 1839 A Chartist petition with 1,200,000 signatures is presented to Parliament by Thomas Attwood, MP.
15 June 1839 Clara Wieck (19) signs the formal statement in Paris leading to legal proceedings for the setting aside of the need for her father’s consent to marry Robert Schumann (29), should he not agree to it.
17 June 1839 Samuel Sebastian Wesley (28) matriculates at Magdalen College, Oxford, for the simultaneous degrees of Bachelor of Music and Doctor of Music.
20 June 1839 Gioachino Rossini (47) and his mistress, Olympe Pélissier, depart Bologna for Naples.
21 June 1839 Samuel Sebastian Wesley (28) graduates from Magdalen College, Oxford University with the degrees of BMus and DMus.
24 June 1839 Egyptian forces defeat the Turks at Nezib (Nizip), 100 km north of Aleppo (Halab).
The first photography exhibition takes place, in France. It shows the work of inventor Hippolyte Bayard.
Robert Schumann (29) contacts Wilhelm Einert, a Leipzig attorney, to begin legal proceedings to marry Clara Wieck (19) without her father’s consent.
28 June 1839 A Paris court sentences Nicolò Paganini (56) to pay 20,000 francs plus interest and costs with a threat of arrest for debt for ten years upon non-fulfillment for claims. He appeals.
1 July 1839 Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II dies in Constantinople and is succeeded by his son Abdulmejid I. Pursuant to the defeat at Nezib, the Ottoman fleet sails to Egypt and surrenders to Mohammed Ali.
2 July 1839 Robert Schumann’s (29) lawyer, Wilhelm Einert, attempts to negotiate with Friedrich Wieck over Clara (19). This fails, precipitating litigation.
Slaves aboard the Spanish schooner Amistad, on its way from West Africa to Cuba, free themselves and take over the ship, killing the captain and a crewman in the process.
4 July 1839 60 Metropolitan Police attempt to break up a crowd of about 1,000 Chartists meeting in an area of Birmingham known as the Bull Ring. A riot ensues and the Army is called to quell the disturbance. The organizers of the meeting are arrested.
6 July 1839 Voting for the French legislature concludes. Republicans and other leftists win a majority.
8 July 1839 Prince Milan Obrenovic II of Serbia dies and is succeeded by his brother Michael under a three-man regency council.
Mehmed Hüsrev Pasha replaces Mehmed Emin Rauf Pasha as Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire.
9 July 1839 His contract in Riga not renewed, and one step ahead of his creditors, Richard Wagner (26) and his wife depart from Mitau, near Riga, hoping to make it to Paris.
12 July 1839 A group of drunken Royal Navy sailors kill a Chinese man in Kowloon. The Chinese will demand that the sailors be turned over to them for trial. The British commander will refuse. It becomes known as the “Kowloon Incident.”
The British Parliament rejects the Chartist petition with 1,200,000 signatures by a vote of 235-46.
16 July 1839 Robert Schumann (29) files his complaint against Friedrich Wieck in Leipzig, asking the court of appeal for permission to marry Clara Wieck (19).
Waltz in G for orchestra by Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (35) is performed for the first time, at the Winter Palace, St. Petersburg.
Over the last two days, Cherokees have battled the Texas militia on the Neches River. More than 100 people are dead.
19 July 1839 After crossing into Prussia, Richard (26) and Minna Wagner board ship in Pillau (Baltiysk), making for Paris. On their way, the couple was in a carriage accident, which shortly thereafter caused Minna to miscarry. They have to sneak on to the ship and hide, since they crossed into Prussia illegally and Wagner is fleeing creditors in Riga.
A Leipzig court orders an attempt to arbitrate between Friedrich Wieck and Robert Schumann (29) in the case of Clara Wieck (19).
Queen Victoria grants royal assent to the Bank Charter Act. It makes the bank of England the only body allowed to produce bank notes.
23 July 1839 Anton Rubinstein (9) makes his debut in Moscow. He plays a movement from the a minor concerto of Hummel (†1) and pieces by Field (†2), Henselt (25), Thalberg (27) and Liszt (27).
29 July 1839 Attempting to reach England from eastern Prussia, the Thetis, on which Richard (26) and Minna Wagner are traveling, puts into a Norwegian fjord in a gale. The composer is struck by the mountains rising from the sea, and the calm water, which he will remember in Der fliegende Holländer.
7 August 1839 A British expeditionary force captures Kabul and a British protectorate is declared.
10 August 1839 Leaders on Crete petition the protecting powers (France-Great Britain-Russia) for union with Greece.
12 August 1839 After three weeks at sea, for a trip that should have taken one, and suffering furious gales, Richard Wagner (26) and his wife arrive in London.
18 August 1839 Robert Schumann (29) meets Clara Wieck (19) for the first time in over a year, in Altenburg, near Leipzig. It is also the first time they have met since asking her father’s consent to marry. They will spend a few days together and go to Leipzig separately. When Clara arrives, she finds that she is no longer welcome in her father’s house.
19 August 1839 The process of photography, as invented by Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre and the late Joseph Nicéphore Niepce, is explained by François Jean Arago to a joint meeting of the French Academies of Science and Fine Arts.
20 August 1839 Adolf replaces Wilhelm as Duke of Nassau.
Richard Wagner (26) meets Giacomo Meyerbeer (47) as the latter takes the cure at Boulogne-sur-Mer. Wagner asks Meyerbeer for assistance and the elder composer freely gives it, both financially and with recommendations. These were eventually withdrawn after Meyerbeer learns that Wagner is speaking ill of him behind his back.
23 August 1839 British forces take Hong Kong.
25 August 1839 Fearful of the Chinese, the last of 57 British families leave Macao for Hong Kong.
26 August 1839 After two months at sea, the Amistad is captured by the USS Washington in US territorial waters off Long Island. They bring the ship into New London, Connecticut. The slaves are imprisoned, the Cuban slave owners freed.
27 August 1839 Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (33), her husband and son leave Berlin for a sojourn in Italy. They go immediately to Leipzig for a week with her brother Felix (30).
29 August 1839 In the Convention of Vergara, conservatives in the north of Spain give up their struggle to place Don Carlos on the throne and recognize Isabella as queen in return for their pay and promotion.
28 August 1839 A reenactment of a medieval jousting contest begins at Eglinton Castle in Scotland and runs for three days. It is a deliberately nostalgic event of high Romanticism including actual combat between 13 knights in full armor and costumed spectators. Tens of thousands of people attend.
31 August 1839 Robert Schumann (29) and Clara Wieck (19) appear for their meeting with Friedrich Wieck and the court-appointed mediator Archdeacon RR Fischer, in Leipzig. Wieck does not show up.
In Vergara, liberal General Baldomero Espartero and absolutist General Rafael Maroto join in the “Abrazo de Vergara” ending the first Carlist War.
Henry David Thoreau and his brother begin a boat trip up the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.
2 September 1839 A progressive Spanish Cortes opens, but will dissolve in two months.
Fromental Halévy’s (40) opéra comique Le shérif, to words of Scribe after Balzac is performed for the first time, at the Théâtre de la Bourse, Paris. It is a failure.
3 September 1839 Clara Wieck (19) moves in with her mother in Berlin.
4 September 1839 The Chinese having refused a British ultimatum to turn over needed supplies to British civilians in Hong Kong, British warships open fire on Chinese naval junks in the harbor. The British get the better of the fighting but the Chinese still refuse to hand over supplies.
6 September 1839 Spain demands that the United States release the Amistad and return its slaves to Cuba.
10 September 1839 Samuel Morse demonstrates his telegraph to the Institut de France.
Gianni di Parigi, a melodramma by Gaetano Donizetti (41) to words of Romani after Saint-Just, is performed for the first time, at Teatro alla Scala, Milan. The critics are not impressed.
17 September 1839 Richard Wagner (26) and his wife, armed with introductions from Meyerbeer (48), reach Paris for the first time. Wagner expresses disappointment with the city.
20 September 1839 Caramo, oder Das Fischerstechen, a grosse komische Oper by Albert Lortzing (37) to his own words after Vilain de Saint Hillaire and Duport, is performed for the first time, in Leipzig Stadttheater.
24 September 1839 Robert Schumann (29) meets Friedrich Wieck privately over the marriage issue. It does not go well.
25 September 1839 France becomes the first European nation to recognize the independence of the Republic of Texas.
26 September 1839 José Lúcio Travassos Valdez, condé e barão de Bomfim replaces Rodrigo Pinto Pizarro Pimentel de Almeida Carvalhais, barão da Ribeira de Sabrosa as Prime Minister of Portugal.
2 October 1839 A court hearing in Leipzig over the Schumann (29)-Wieck (20) marriage issue is postponed until 18 December because Friedrich Wieck does not show up.
3 October 1839 The first public railroad in Italy opens between Naples and Portici.
11 October 1839 Frédéric Chopin (29) and George Sand arrive in Paris from Nohant. He will stay here for the next 16 months.
12 October 1839 Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (33) and her family arrive in Venice, the first stop on their year-long tour of Italy.
16 October 1839 The first documented public performance of the music of Frédéric Chopin (29) in North America takes place when a German immigrant named Ludwig Rakemann plays a nocturne and two mazurkas in his debut in New York.
21 October 1839 Giacomo Meyerbeer (48) attends a gathering in Paris where Frédéric Chopin (29) performs some “new mazurkas” and the Polonaise op.53. Meyerbeer calls the polonaise “heavenly.”
22 October 1839 Giuseppe Verdi’s (26) second child, one-year-old Icilio Romano, dies in Milan.
23 October 1839 Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens is published in book form. It was serialized over the last 18 months.
29 October 1839 Frédéric Chopin (29) and Ignaz Moscheles provide the entertainment for the French royal family and their guest, United States Minister Lewis Cass.
30 October 1839 Verleih’ uns Frieden for chorus and orchestra by Felix Mendelssohn (30) is performed for the first time, in Leipzig.
3 November 1839 Two Royal Navy ships defeat 29 Chinese warships at Chuenpi.
By the Reform Decree, all citizens of the Ottoman Empire are guaranteed the right to life, liberty and property. This is done to solidify western support for the regime.
4 November 1839 A Chartist rising in Newport is suppressed. Some leading Chartists are arrested.
5 November 1839 Franz Liszt (28) performs a concert in Trieste that is so successful a second one is scheduled for 11 November.
15 November 1839 Franz Liszt (28) reaches Vienna from Trieste.
17 November 1839 After receiving many reports of his wife’s infidelity, Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (35) overhears his mother-in-law arranging for a meeting of his wife with her lover. “For me this was sufficient.”
Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio, a dramma by Giuseppe Verdi (26) to words of Solera possibly after Piazza, is performed for the first time, in Teatro alla Scala, Milan. The work enjoys a reasonable success. This opera marks the first time that Giuseppina Strepponi appears in a Verdi production.
18 November 1839 Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (35), having moved to a friend’s house in St. Petersburg, writes to his wife informing her that because of her infidelity, he can no longer live with her. He is not blameless on that score either.
19 November 1839 Franz Liszt (28) gives the first of six recitals in Vienna, this one attended by the dowager empress. He premieres his transcription of the Symphony no.6 of Beethoven (†12). The concerts are a smashing success.
24 November 1839 Roméo et Juliette, a symphonie dramatique for solo voices, double chorus and orchestra by Hector Berlioz (35) to words of Deschamps after Shakespeare, is performed for the first time, at the Paris Conservatoire, conducted by the composer. Dedicated to Nicolò Paganini (57), it is an unquestioned triumph. Richard Wagner (26), present either today or 1 December, is very impressed.
25 November 1839 Englishman WH Fox Talbot publishes a photographic negative and publicly explains the negative to positive procedure he developed four years ago.
26 November 1839 Enrico II, a melodramma serio by Otto Nicolai (29) to words of Romani, is performed for the first time, in Teatro grande Trieste.
Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (34) and her family arrive in Rome on their year long tour of Italy.
2 December 1839 The Twenty-sixth Congress of the United States convenes in Washington. Whigs have made small gains in both houses but remain in the minority.
3 December 1839 King Frederik VI of Denmark dies and is succeeded by his nephew Christian VIII.
5 December 1839 Charles Gounod (21) leaves Paris for Rome for his Prix de Rome year.
6 December 1839 Imperial Commissioner Lin Tse-hsü ends all trade with Great Britain “forever.”
18 December 1839 Friedrich Wieck presents an eleven-page appeal in court, attacking both his daughter Clara (20) and her suitor Robert Schumann (29) who are present. He calls Schumann incompetent as a musician, composer and editor, that he has lied about his finances, that he is vain and egotistical, that he is an excessive drinker, and that he only wants Clara so he can live off her career. Wieck’s worst epithet against Clara is that she is incapable of running a home. Wieck’s unbridled behavior in court seriously hurts his case. Judgment is reserved until 4 January.
Franz Liszt (28) arrives in Pressburg (Bratislava), seat of the Hungarian Diet, the first stop in what will become his triumphal return to Hungary.
British-born American scientist John William Draper makes the first (extant) photographic image of the moon, a daguerreotype.
19 December 1839 Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (35) petitions Tsar Nikolai I to be released from his position as Imperial Kapellmeister “because of ill health...and domestic disorders...”
Franz Liszt (28) plays a matinee concert in Pressburg (Bratislava). “Enthusiasm impossible to describe.” As an encore, he plays his arrangement of the Rákóczy March, a melody banned by the Austrians. The audience is driven to a patriotic frenzy.
23 December 1839 Franz Liszt (28) arrives in Pest from Pressburg (Bratislava) in the carriage of Count Casimir Esterhazy and accompanied by several Hungarian noblemen.
25 December 1839 Robert Schumann (29) and Clara Wieck (20) spend Christmas together at her mother’s house in Berlin.
28 December 1839 Thomas Carlyle’s Chartism is published. It is an attack on the ruling classes and how their policies create an atmosphere of revolution.
30 December 1839 Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (35), depressed over the break with his wife, is granted release from the position of Imperial Kapellmeister, St. Petersburg. He has stayed on long enough to retire with the rank of collegiate assessor.
©Paul Scharfenberger 2004-2012
9 August 2012
Last Updated (Thursday, 09 August 2012 05:14)