The year 1702 in music involved some significant events.

Events

• 13 March – A month after commencing his university education, 17-year-old George Frideric Handel accepts the position of organist at Halle Cathedral, replacing J. C. Leporin, for whom he had acted as assistant.^[1]
• Johann Sebastian Bach concludes his musical education at St. Michael's School in Lüneburg.
• Georg Philipp Telemann becomes director of Leipzig opera, and founds Leipzig Collegium Musicum.
• Alessandro Scarlatti leaves Naples and seeks the patronage of Prince Ferdinando de' Medici.
• Michel de Saint-Lambert publishes Les principes du clavecin.
• Probable year – German Baroque composer Jakob Greber moves from Italy to London – accompanied by his mistress, operatic soprano Margherita de L'Épine – where he will remain for three years composing incidental music for plays and arias for L'Épine, including those for this year's première of Nicholas Rowe's play The Fair Penitent.^[2]

Published popular music

• Tavern Bilkers, burlesque by John Weaver^{[citation needed]}

Classical music

• Giovanni Henrico Albicastro – Sonate a violino solo col basso continuo
• Tomaso Albinoni
  • Lontananza crudel, mi squarci il core, T.204.04 (Op. 4)
  • Poiché al vago seren di due pupille, T.205
• Friedrich Nicolaus Brauns – St John Passion (formerly attributed to Reinhard Keiser)
• Marc-Antoine Charpentier
  • Extremum Dei judicium, H.401
  • Judicium Salomonis, performed for the opening of the French parliament^[3]
• François Couperin
  • Quatre versets d'un motet composé et chanté par ordre du roy
  • Qui dat nivem sicut lanam
• Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer
  • Ariadne musica
  • Tafelmusik
• Louis Marchand – Pièces de clavecin, Livre 1
• James Paisible
  • 6 Sonatas of Two Parts
  • Airs for the play King Edward the Third
  • Airs for the comedy She Would and She Would Not
• Alessandro Scarlatti – Mottetti sacri ad una, due, trè, e quattro voci con violini
• Francesco Scarlatti – Dixit dominus (Psalm 110)
• Johannes Schenck – Le nymphe di Rheno, 12 sonatas and suites for 2 violas da gamba, Op. 8 (Amsterdam)
• Johann Speth – Ars Magna Consoni et Dissoni
• Francisco Valls – Missa Scala Aretina
• Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow – Danksaget dem Vater

Opera

• François Bouvard – Médus
• André Campra – Tancrède
• Pietro Torri – Torneo

Births

• January 6 – José de Nebra, composer (died 1768)
• February 7 – Carl August Thielo, composer (died 1763)
• February 27 – Johann Valentin Görner, composer (died 1762)
• March 5 – Michael Mietke II, German harpsichord maker (died 1754)
• March 13 – Burkat Shudi, Swiss-born harpsichord maker (died 1773)
• March 27 – Johann Ernst Eberlin, composer (died 1762)
• July 22 – Alessandro Besozzi, oboist and composer (died 1793)

Deaths

• July 6 – Nicolas Lebègue, French harpsichordist, composer and organist (born 1632)
• July 16 – Étienne Loulié, musician, pedagogue and musical theorist (born 1654)
• September 17 – Olaus Rudbeck, composer (born 1630)
• December – José de Cascante, organist and composer (born 1646)