1743 in music

Events

• March 23 – English premiere of Handel's Messiah before royalty at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London.
• Johann Sebastian Bach examines the organ at the Johanniskirche, Leipzig.
• 1743–1746 Bach revises his St Matthew Passion (two organs used again, but viola da gamba still retained; recitatives revised so that now only the vox Christi recitatives have sustained continuo parts). No evidence of version being performed (version we know today).

Classical music

• Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach – Keyboard Sonata in B minor, H.32.5
• William Boyce – Solomon (serenata)
• Maurice Greene – "Thou visitest the earth" (Song)
• George Frideric Handel
  • Samson (oratorio, composed 1741–42, premiered 18 February 1732 at Covent Garden in London)
  • Semele, HWV 58 (oratorio, composed 3 June to 4 July, not performed until 1744)
  • Joseph and His Brethren, HWV 59
  • Te Deum in D major, HWV 283
  • Organ Concerto in A major, HWV 307
• Niccolò Jommelli – La Betulia liberata (sacred oratorio)
• Johann Ludwig Krebs – 6 Trios, Krebs-WV 317–322
• James Oswald – Colin's Kisses, a set of 12 songs.
• Giuseppe Tartini – 12 Violin Sonatas, published in Rome in 1745 as Op. 2 and in Paris, ca. 1747 as Op. 3 (at least two other publications are known as Op. 2, including the 6 Violin Sonatas published in Amsterdam in this year, but there are no other collections published as Op. 3)
• Valentin Rathgeber – Pastorellen für die Weihnachtszeit, R 322

Opera

• Joseph Bodin de Boismortier – Don Quichotte chez la duchesse, Op.97
• Bernard de Bury – Les Caractères de la folie
• Baldassare Galuppi – Enrico
• Christoph Willibald Gluck – Demofoonte, Wq.3
• Carl Heinrich Graun – Artaserse
• Johann Adolph Hasse – Antigono
• Niccolò Jommelli – Demofoonte
• Domingo Terradellas – Merope

Publications

• Francesco Geminiani – Pièces de clavecin tirées des differens ouvrages de Mr F. Geminiani adaptées par luy même (arrangements, mostly from Opp. 1 and 4)
• Maurice Greene – 40 Select Anthems in Score
• Louis-Gabriel Guillemain – 6 Sonates en quatuors, ou conversations galantes, for flute, violin, viola da gamba, and basso continuo, Op. 12 (Paris)
• Jean-Marie Leclair – Quatrième livre de sonates, for violin (two alternatively for flute) and basso continuo, Op. 9 (Paris)
• Giovanni Benedetto Platti – 6 Flute Sonatas, Op. 3 (Nuremberg)
• Giuseppe Sammartini – 12 Trio Sonatas, Op. 3 (Paris)
• Giuseppe Tartini – VI Sonate, for violin and basso continuo, Op. 2 (Amsterdam) (two other collections were published as Op. 2, VI concerti a 8 in Amsterdam, 1734, and 12 Sonatas for violin and basso continuo in Rome, 1745, but also in Paris, ca. 1747 as Op. 3)

Births

• February 19 – Luigi Boccherini, composer (died 1805)
• May 17 – Christoph Bernhard Verspoell, composer and priest (died 1818)
• May 21 – François Duval, dancer
• July 6 – Valentin Adamberger, operatic tenor (died 1804)
• July 14 – Gavrila Derzhavin, poet (died 1816)
• September 30 – Christian Ehregott Weinlig, cantor and composer (died 1813)
• October 5 – Giuseppe Gazzaniga, composer (died 1818)
• October 10 – Marie-Madeleine Guimard, ballerina (died 1816)
• November 18 – Johannes Ewald, librettist and dramatist (died 1781)
• December 7 – Johann Joachim Eschenburg, translator (died 1820)
• Date unknown
  • Charles-Georges Boyer, music publisher (died c. 1806)
  • George Saville Carey, librettist and entertainer (died 1807)

Deaths

• February 1 – Giuseppe Ottavio Pitoni (born 1657)
• February 6 – Toussaint Bertin de la Doué, composer (born 1680)
• February 7 – Lodovico Giustini, composer (born 1685)
• March 9 – Jean-Baptiste de Lully, son of Jean-Baptiste Lully (born 1665)
• March 16 – Jean-Baptiste Matho, composer (born 1663)
• April 20 – Alexandre-François Desportes, copyist and painter (born 1661)
• July 12 – Johann Bernhard Bach (the younger), organist and composer (born 1700)
• August 13 – Johann Elias Schlegel, librettist and poet (born 1719)
• September 14 – Georg von Bertouch, composer (born 1668)
• October 5 – Henry Carey, poet, dramatist, songwriter and theatrical composer, suicide (born 1687)