1779 in music

Events

• February 16 – Composer William Boyce is buried in St Paul's Cathedral. The music at his funeral features the massed choirs of St Paul's itself, Westminster Abbey and the Chapel Royal.
• April – The London Magazine reports on the organ-playing of three-year-old prodigy William Crotch.
• December 26 – Teatro alla Scala in Milan opens its operatic carnival season with Josef Mysliveček's new opera Armida.
• The opera house at Eszterháza burns down.
• Mezzo-soprano Luigia Polzelli and her violinist husband Antonio arrive at the Esterházy court, where she quickly becomes the lover of Joseph Haydn.

Opera

• Johann Christian Bach – Amadis de Gaule
• Domenico Cimarosa – L'infedeltà fedele
• Christoph Willibald Gluck – Iphigénie en Tauride
• Joseph Haydn - L'isola disabitata
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Zaide

Classical music

• Joseph Haydn – Symphony No. 70
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra

Publications

• Francesco Antonio Vallotti – Della scienza teorica e pratica della moderna musica (On the scientific theory and practice of modern music)

Births

• January 8 – John White, composer
• January 15 – Jean Coralli, ballet producer and choreographer
• February 5 – François van Campenhout, singer and composer (d. 1848)
• February 22 – Joachim Nicolas Eggert, composer (d. 1813)
• February 23 – Johann Caspar Aiblinger, composer (d. 1867)
• March 1 – Jacob Gottfried Weber, composer (d. 1839)
• March 13 – Oliver Shaw, composer (d. 1848)
• April 21 – William Knyvett, composer
• May 28 – Thomas Moore, poet and lyricist
• August 1 – Francis Scott Key, songwriter
• September 10 – Louis Alexandre Piccinni
• October 15 – Johan Olof Wallin, songwriting bishop

Deaths

• February 2 – Georg Philipp Kress, composer
• February 7 – William Boyce, composer
• April 6 – Tommaso Traetta, composer
• April 7 – Martha Ray, singer
• December 5 – Hermann Anton Gelinek, organist and violinist (born 1709)
• December 28 – Gennaro Manna, composer
• date unknown – Josse Boutmy, organist and harpsichordist (born 1697)