Pick a Day

Music History Events: Debut Albums

November 21, 1846 The literary character Sweeney Todd makes his first ever appearance, in a short story The String of Pearls: A Romance. The story later becomes a musical, complete with the song "The Ballad Of Sweeney Todd."

May 14, 1832 German composer Felix Mendelssohn's "The Hebrides Overture" also known as "Fingal's Cave" is premiered in London.

May 7, 1824 Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is premiered in Vienna, Austria. Its final movement incorporates Friedrich Schiller "Ode to Joy" poem sung by four vocal soloists and a chorus. It represents the first time a major composer has used voices in a symphony.

February 20, 1816 Gioachino Rossini's opera "The Barber of Seville" premiers in Rome with disastrous results. A guitar string snaps, a cat walks on stage and there are protestations by rival composer Giovanni Paisiello. The audience hiss and jeer throughout the performance.

April 7, 1805 Beethoven's 3rd Symphony (Eroica) is premiered in Vienna's Theater-an-der-Wien. Innovative in length and size of orchestra, many criticize the first movement for its dissonant chords.

April 29, 1798 Joseph Haydn's oratorio The Creation is first performed in Vienna in a concert for the city's aristocrats. The oratorio depicts and celebrates the creation of the world as described in the Book of Genesis and Paradise Lost.

May 16, 1767 A piano is played for the first time in public in the UK. In a playbill for a performance of The Beggar's Opera at Covent Garden Theatre, London, it is announced a Miss Brickler sings "accompanied by Mr. Dibdin on a new instrument called piano-forte."

March 23, 1743 George Frideric Handel's "Messiah" has its London premiere at the Covent Garden Theatre. It is not well received as the press feels that the work's subject matter is too exalted to be performed in a theatre, particularly by secular singer-actresses such as Susanna Cibber and Kitty Clive.

April 13, 1742 George Frederic Handel's Messiah is premiered at Fishamble Street, Dublin. It is part of a charity series of concerts that the composer had been invited to give by the Lord Lieutenant.

April 11, 1727 Johann Sebastian Bach's St Matthew Passion is performed for the first time in Leipzig's St. Thomas Church.

February 24, 1711 George Frideric Handel's Rinaldo, the first Italian language opera written specifically for the London stage, premieres at the Queen's Theatre in London's Haymarket.

February 27, 1675 The oldest surviving English opera, Matthew Locke's Psyche, is first performed at Dorset Garden Theatre, London by the Duke's Company.

February 24, 1607 Claudio Monterverdi's first opera, L'Orfeo, premieres in the The Ducal Palace, a group of buildings in Mantua, Lombardy. Monteverdi is considered the first opera composer to make it into a cohesive art-form.