January 21 - Luigi Boccherini becomes an official composer to Prince Frederick William of Prussia.
February 7 - Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, presents a festival at Schönbrunn Palace, at which new compositions by both Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri are performed.
April 28 - Leopold Mozart writes to his daughter, Maria Anna Mozart, predicting failure for his son's latest opera, The Marriage of Figaro.
October 18 - Leopold Mozart is given a blood test on the same day that his daughter-in-law Constanze Mozart gives birth to her third child, Johann Thomas Leopold; the baby dies a month later, Leopold the following year.
November 7 – America's oldest singing society is founded as the Stoughton Musical Society.
November 24 - Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf unsuccessfully seeks employment with the newly enthroned King Frederick William II of Prussia.
In Britain, William Parsons succeeds John Stanley as Master of the King's Musick.
In Benares, Jiwan Shah and Francis Fowke conduct an experiment comparing the pitch of the harpsichord with that of a traditional Indian instrument.
Georg Joseph Vogler is appointed Kapellmeister to King Gustav III of Sweden.
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Funeral music for A. Schulte
Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf
Der Apotheker und der Doktor (singspiel)
Giobbe (oratorio)
Leopold Kozeluch - Three Piano Sonatas, Op. 20
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Piano Concerto No. 23 in A
Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor
Piano Trio No 2
Symphony No. 38 in D "Prague"
Joseph Haydn – Symphony No. 82 in C ("Bear")
Gioacchino Albertini – Virginia
Bonifazio Asioli – Le nozze in villa
Dmitri Stepanovich Bortniansky – Le Faucon
Nicolas Dalayrac – Nina
François-Joseph Gossec - Rosine, ou L’épouse abandonnée
André Grétry - Amphitryon
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Der Schauspieldirektor (The Impresario)
Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) (first performed in Vienna, libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte).
Antonio Salieri
Les Horaces
Prima la musica e poi le parole
Giuseppe Sarti – Armida e Rinaldo
First edition of Elias Mann's Worcester Collection
January 3 – Johann Christian Friedrich Schneider, composer
June 21 – Charles Edward Horn, singer and composer (died 1849)
September 11 – Friedrich Kuhlau, composer (died 1832)
September 27 - José Mariano Elízaga, composer (died 1842)
November 10 - Carl Eberwein, violinist and composer (died 1868)
November 18
Carl Maria von Weber, composer (or December 18)
Sir Henry Bishop, Professor of Music at Oxford
December 20 – Pietro Raimondi, composer
date unknown
Konstantinos Nikolopoulos, composer (died 1841)
Elena Pucić-Sorkočević, composer (died 1865)
January 4 - Moses Mendelssohn, philosopher and grandfather of composers Felix Mendelssohn and Fanny Mendelssohn (born 1729)
January 14 – Michael Arne, composer (born c.1740)
February 16 - Johann Georg Schürer, composer (born 1720)
March 7 – Frantisek Benda, composer (born 1709)
March 21 - Johann Gottlieb Preller, cantor and composer (born 1727)
April 13 - Jan Tomáš Kuzník, composer and music teacher (born 1716)
May 19 – John Stanley, composer (born 1712)
June 2 - Giovanni Battista Lampugnani, composer (born 1706)
July - Sophia Baddeley, actress and singer (born 1745)
July 29 – Franz Asplmayr, composer (born 1728)
August 17 – King Frederick II of Prussia, amateur composer (born 1712)
September 6 - Karl von Ordóñez, composer (born 1734)
September 18 – Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, musical instrument maker (born 1711)
October 6 – Antonio Sacchini, composer (born 1730)
1786 in music Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA
