- Jan 3 Rachel Félix, Swiss-born French singer and actress in tragedies (mistress of Napoleon III), dies of tuberculosis at 36
- Jan 8 Friedrich Karl Kuhmstedt, composer, dies at 48
- Feb 19 Alois Basil Nikolaus Tomasini, Italian violinist and composer, dies at 78
- Apr 3 Sigismund Ritter von Neukomm, Austrian composer and royal chaplain master, dies at 79
- Apr 7 Anton Diabelli, Austria publisher and composer, dies at 76
- Apr 16 Johann Baptist Cramer, German-British pianist, composer and music publisher, dies at 87
- Jun 3 Julius Reubke, German organist, pianist, and composer (Sonata on the 94th Psalm in c), dies of tuberculosis at 24
- Jun 12 William Horsley, English musician and composer, dies at 83
- Jul 6 Jan Emmanuel Doležálek, Bohemian organist and composer, dies at 78
- Sep 8 Jacopo Foroni, Italian opera composer (I gladiatori; Advokathen Panthelin), and conductor, dies during cholera epidemic at 34
- Sep 10 Henry Wellington Greatorex, English American composer (Gloria Patri), dies at 44
- Sep 11 Alexander Gurilyov, Russian composer, dies at 55
- Oct 26 Isac Baker Woodbury, American composer, and musicologist (The Dulcimer: Or the New York Collection of Sacred Music), dies at 39
- Dec 18 Joseph-Henri-Ignace Mees, Flemish composer, dies at 81
- Dec 27 Alexandre Pierre François Boëly, French composer, dies at 73
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