1875 in music

Events

January 5 – Palais Garnier, home of the Paris Opera, designed by Charles Garnier, opens.
January 24 - Camille Saint-Saëns' orchestral Danse Macabre receives its première.
March 3 – Georges Bizet's opera Carmen debuts, at the Opéra-Comique in Paris.
May – The score for the ballet Swan Lake is commissioned from Tchaikovsky (premiered in 1877).
May 6 – Richard Wagner conducts portions of Götterdämmerung in concert in Vienna (the complete opera is premiered in 1876).
August 23 – Composer Zdeněk Fibich marries operatic contralto Betty Hanušová, sister of his first wife Růžena Hanušová.
October 25 – The first performance of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 is given in Boston, Massachusetts, with Hans von Bülow as soloist.
Robert Volkmann becomes professor of harmony and counterpoint at the National Academy of Music in Budapest, under Franz Liszt.
T. B. Harms is established as a pioneering popular music publisher in New York City.

"All the Way My Savior Leads Me" w. Fanny Crosby m. Robert Lowry
"Angels, Meet Me At the Cross Road" w.m. Will Hays
"Carve Dat Possum" by Sam Lucas & Herbert Hershy
"Draw Me Nearer" w. Fanny Crosby m. William H. Doane
"Dreaming Forever of Thee" w.m. John Hill Hewitt
"I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen" w.m. Thomas P. Westendorf
"Myfanwy" w.m. Joseph Parry
"Nancy Lee" w. Frederic Edward Weatherly, m. Stephen Adams (pseudonym of Michael Maybrick)
"The Spelling Bee" w.m. Septimus Winner
"Take me back to home and mother," w. by Arthur W. French, m. by William A. Huntley<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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"To God Be the Glory" w. Fanny Crosby m. William H. Doane
"A Warrior Bold" w. Edwin Thomas m. Stephen Adams (pseudonym of Michael Maybrick)
"The Witches Flight (Galop Caprice)" by Henry M. Russell

Johannes Brahms
- Fifteen Liebeslieder for piano duet
- String Quartet No. 3
Antonín Dvořák
- Moravian duets (for voices and piano)
- Piano Quartet No. 1
- Piano Trio No. 1
- Serenade for Strings
- String Quintet (with double bass) (orig Op. 18)
- Symphony No. 5
Gabriel Fauré
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (for orchestra)
- Suite for Orchestra
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (for chorus and orchestra)
Edvard Grieg – incidental music to Ibsen's Peer Gynt
Édouard Lalo – {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}
Alexandre Luigini – Ballet égyptien
Jules Massenet – oratorio Eve
Modest Mussorgsky – {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Songs and Dances of Death), song cycle for bass voice and piano
Amilcare Ponchielli – cantata {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov – String Quartet No. 1 in F Major, Op.12
Camille Saint-Saëns
- Piano Quartet, Op. 41
- Piano Concerto No. 4, Op. 44
Bedřich Smetana – Má vlast (My Country) – Six symphonic poems
Tchaikovsky
- Piano Concerto No. 1
- Symphony No. 3
- Swan Lake (ballet, composition begun)

Carmen first performed in Paris. Music by Georges Bizet and libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy.
Die Königin von Saba, music by Karl Goldmark and libretto by Salomon Mosenthal (at the Hofoper (now the State Opera) in Vienna, on 10 March 1875)
Angelo, music by César Cui