Events

• October 25 - Johannes Brahms' Symphony No. 4 is premiered in Meiningen.
• Tin Pan Alley group of popular song writers & publishers forms in New York City
• Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado premieres in London

Published popular music

"Three Little Maids from School" from Gilbert & Sullivan's "The Mikado"

• "American Patrol"     m. F. W. Meacham
• "The Boy In The Gallery"     w.m. George Ware
• "Dars a Lock on de Chicken Coop Door" by Sam Lucas
• "Funny Things They Do Upon The Sly"     w. G. W. Hunter & John Cooke Jnr m. G. W. Hunter
• "Open Road"     Johann Strauss II
• "Saffi's Aria"     Johann Strauss II
• "Some Sweet Day" by Edward L. Park & William Howard Doane
• "This Is The House That Jerry Built"     w. T. S. Lonsdale m. W. G. Eaton
• "What Cheer 'Ria"     w. Will Herbert m. Bessie Bellwood
• From the score of The Mikado:
  • "A More Humane Mikado" ("Let the Punishment fit the Crime")
  • "The Flowers That Bloom In The Spring"
  • "There Is Beauty In The Bellow Of The Blast"
  • "Three Little Maids From School"
  • "A Wand'ring Minstrel I"

Classical music

• Alexander Borodin - String Quartet No. 2 in D
• Johannes Brahms - Symphony No. 4 op. 98 in E minor
• George Whitefield Chadwick - String Quartet No. 3 in D (^[1])
• Anton n Dvo k - Symphony No. 7 op. 70 in D minor
• Alexander Glazunov - Stenka Razin
• Jean Sibelius - String Quartet in E-flat
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Manfred Symphony
• Jos Vianna da Motta - Piano Concerto in A

Opera

• Fromental Hal vy, completed by Georges Bizet - No given its first performance at Karlsruhe.
• Jules Massenet - Le Cid
• Andr Messager - La B arnaise
• Emile Pessard - Tabarin premiered on January 12 at the Th tre de l'Op ra, Paris
• Amilcare Ponchielli - Marion Delorme
• George Stephanescu - Scaiul barbatilor

Musical theater

• Edward Jakobowski - Erminie (libretto by Claxson Bellamy and Harry Paulton)     London production
• William S. Gilbert & Arthur Sullivan - The Mikado     London production
• Johann Strauss II - Der Zigeunerbaron (The Gypsy Baron)     Vienna production

Births

• January 13 - James V. Monaco, Italian-born US composer
• January 27 - Jerome Kern
• February 9 - Alban Berg, composer (d. 1935)
• February 12 - James Scott
• February 16 - Will Fyffe, Scottish comedian and singer
• March 15 - Bertha Raffetto, American singer
• May 5 - Agust n Barrios, composer
• May 14 - Otto Klemperer, conductor and composer
• July 12 - George Butterworth, composer
• July 17 - Benjamin Dale, composer
• October 21 - Egon Wellesz, Austrian composer
• October 25 - Sam M. Lewis, US lyricist
• December 19 - Joe "King" Oliver, jazz musician (d. 1938)

Deaths

• February 15 - Leopold Damrosch, conductor, 52 (complications from a cold)
• March 31 - Franz Abt, composer, 65
• April 24 - Henry Augustus Rawes, hymn-writer, 58
• May - Adolphe Blanc, composer, 56
• May 1 - Henry Brinley Richards, composer, 67
• May 12 - Ferdinand Hiller, German composer, conductor and pianist, 73
• June 29 - Samuel C. Upham, lyricist, 66
• August 26 - August Gottfried Ritter, organist and composer, 74
• September 11 - Julius Zarebski, Polish pianist and composer, 31
• September 13 - Friedrich Kiel, German composer, 63
• October 21 - Michele Novaro, songwriter, 66

References

fr:1885 en musique mk:1885 pt:1885 na m sica sq:1885 n muzik sv:Musik ret 1885