Events

Johann Christian Bach gives the first ever solo piano performance, in London on an instrument by Johannes Zumpe.^[1]
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his family are resident in Vienna until December.
Antonio Sacchini returns to Venice to become director of the Conservatorio dell'Ospadeletto.
Giuseppe Tartini suffers a stroke.
Michael Haydn marries Maria Magdalena Lipp, a singer and the daughter of the court organist.

Popular music

"The Liberty Song", with words by John Dickinson – considered the first American patriotic song. He used the music to the traditional British song, Hearts of Oak.

Johann Adolf Hasse – Piramo e Tisbe
Joseph Haydn – Lo speziale
Niccolò Jommelli
- Fetonte
- La schiava liberata
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Bastien und Bastienne, K. 50/46b (his first published opera)
- La finta semplice, K.51/46a
Giovanni Paisiello – Olimpia
Antonio Zingarelli – I quattro pazzi

Luigi Boccherini
- Cello Concerto in D Major
- Cello Sonata in C major, G.6
- 6 Violin Sonatas, G.25-30, Op. 5
Muzio Clementi – Sonata for Harpsichord in G major
John Garth – Six Sonatas for the Harpsichord, piano forte and organ with accompanyments for two violins and a violoncello, Op. 2
Pietro Alessandro Guglielmi – 6 Harpsichord Quartets, Op. 1
Joseph Haydn
- Applausus
- 6 String Trios, Op. 5
- Symphony No.49 in F minor, Hob.I:49 "La passione", "Il quakuo di bel'humore"
Michael Haydn – Missa sancti Francisci Seraphici, MH 119
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Symphonies No. 7 and No. 8
Friedrich Schwindl – 6 Trio Sonatas, Op. 5

William Hayes – Anecdotes of the 5 Music-Meetings
Johann Caspar Heck – A Complete System of Harmony
Gabriele Leone Méthode raisonnée pour passer du Violon à la Mandoline (Rational method for migrating from the violin to the mandolin)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau – Dictionnaire de musique
Francisco Inácio Solano – Nova arte, e breve compendio de musica

January 16 – Carl Andreas Göpfert, German composer (died 1818)
March 12 – Carolus Antonius Fodor, composer
April 7 – Karl Theodor Toeschi, composer
July 6 – Johann Georg Heinrich Backofen, composer and clarinetist (died 1830)
September 1 – Carl Bernhard Wessely, composer
September 12 – Benjamin Carr, composer
September 14 – Georg Johann Schinn, composer
September 21 – Louis-Emmanuel Jadin, composer, pianist and harpsichordist (c. 1863)
November 24 – Jean-Engelbert Pauwels, composer
December 6 – Johann Baptist Henneberg, composer
date unknown
- Gaetano Crivelli, operatic tenor (d. 1836)
- Margarethe Danzi, collaborator and composer (died 1800)