Seminar in Solo Vocal Literature Composer Timeline

Frederick the Great again precipitates a European conflict, marching without warning into Saxony and launching the Seven Years' War

A comet returns exactly at the time predicted by English astronomer Edmond Halley, and is subsequently known by his name

A treaty signed in Paris ends the Seven Years' War between Britain, France and Spain

A border incident at Balta, in the southern Ukraine, sparks a war between Russia and Turkey that will last six years

The triangular trade, controlled from Liverpool, ships millions of Africans across the Atlantic as slaves

Captain Cook sets off, in HMS Resolution, on his second voyage to the southern hemisphere

The first shot of the American Revolution is fired in a skirmish between redcoats and militiamen at Lexington, on the road to Concord

In the Treaty of Paris, negotiated by Adams, Franklin and Jay, the British government recognizes US independence

The first mail coach leaves Bristol for London, introducing a new era of faster transport

The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade is founded in London, with a strong Quaker influence

A left-wing political club begins to meet in a Jacobin convent in Paris, thus becoming known as the Jacobins

Stationed at Valence, Napoleon becomes president of the local Jacobin club and makes radical speeches against the nobility and clergy

France declares war on the Austrian emperor, an event that plunges Europe into more than 20 years of conflict

The Terror begins in republican France, with executions rising to more than 3000 in December

The 26-year-old Napoleon Bonaparte comes to public attention for his part in saving the Convention in Paris from an assault by rebels

Napoleon's soldiers discover a black basalt slab, the Rosetta Stone, near the village of Rashid in Egypt

Both France and Britain, engaged against each other in the Napoleonic Wars, take the first census of their populations

In the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson buys from Napoleon nearly a million square miles at a knock-down price, doubling the size of the US

Legislation abolishing the slave trade is passed in both Britain and America

After victory at Borodino, Napoleon enters Moscow to find the city abandoned and burning
Napoleon arrives back in Paris ahead of the remains of his army, after losing half a million men in the Russian snows

Damage to US trade by British orders in council prompts war (the War of 1812) between the two nations

Napoleon goes into exile on the island of Elba, which he immediately treats as a miniature state in need of improvement

Britain and the United States sign the Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812

Napoleon slips away from Elba with a fleet of small vessels and lands on the coast of France The English and Prussian generals Wellington and Blücher defeat Napoleon in a closely fought battle at Waterloo

Napoleon dies on St Helena, after six years of captivity

The Eastern Question, concerning Turkey's ability to control its vast empire, becomes a persistent nineteenth-century theme

The death of the last infant cousin senior to her in the royal succession makes Victoria heir to the British throne

HMS Beagle sails from Plymouth to survey the coasts of the southern hemisphere, with Charles Darwin as the expedition's naturalist

Oberlin College in Ohio becomes the first in the USA to enroll women as degree students

The 18-year-old Victoria comes to the throne in Britain, beginning the long Victorian era

The Communist Manifesto, by Marx and Engels, is published in Paris with the ringing slogan: 'Workers of the world, unite!’

The gold rush to California gathers pace during 1849, causing the prospectors to become known as 'forty-niners'

The Habsburgs recover power in both Austria and Hungary

The first Neanderthal man to be discovered is unearthed by quarry workers in the Neander valley, near Düsseldorf

Charles Darwin puts forward the theory of evolution in On the Origin of Species, the result of 20 years' research

Shots are fired against the Federal military garrison in Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbour, launching the American Civil War

On a visit to a Washington theatre, Lincoln is assassinated in his box by John Wilkes Booth

Gregor Mendel reads a paper to the Natural History Society in Brno describing his discoveries in the field of genetics

Thousands of distinguished guests assemble at Port Said for the opening of the Suez Canal

Susan B. Anthony presents a Woman's Declaration of Rights at the US centennial Fourth of July celebrations

The human voice is recorded for the first time when Thomas Edison recites 'Mary had a little lamb' into his newly patented phonograph

Thomas Edison develops a long-lasting carbon filament light bulb (traditionally 40 hours) and is able to light his Menlo Park laboratory with 30 bulbs

Ellis Island in New York Bay opens as the point of reception for arriving immigrants

Mahatma Gandhi, travelling with a first-class ticket, is forcibly ejected from the carriage at Pietermaritzburg because of his colour

Japan and China go to war over Korea, with disastrous results for China

Lenin is arrested in St Petersburg, along with other members of the Union for the Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class

German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen discovers rays that can penetrate light-proof barriers, and names them x-rays because their nature is as yet unknown

Marie and Pierre Curie isolate the element radium, working without any protection because unaware of the danger of radioactivity

In the Treaty of Paris, ending the Spanish-American War, Spain cedes Puerto Rico and Cuba to the USA

US Secretary of State John Hay circulates a proposal that western powers should adopt an open-to-all trading policy in China

Lenin and comrades launch in Munich a radical newspaper, Iskra ('the spark')

Queen Victoria dies at Osborne House, on the Isle of Wight, after 63 years on the throne

In his pamphlet What is to be done? Lenin argues for early action to promote revolution

Lenin's supporters become known as the Bolsheviks ('majority') as opposed to the Mensheviks ('minority') after a split at the party's Second Congress

Orville Wright travels 40 yards in the first successful powered flight, at Kitty Hawk in North Carolina

Cuba is forced to accept a permanent US military presence in Guantanamo Bay

A surprise Japanese attack on Russian warships in Port Arthur launches the Russo-Japanese War for influence in Far East

The first soviet ("council") of workers is set up in St Petersburg, introducing a word of great significance in Russian Communist history

Hitler moves to Vienna, hoping to be a painter, but is twice rejected as a student by the Academy of Fine Arts

In direct response to Britain's new Dreadnought, Germany increases the production of battleships

Britain launches HMS Dreadnought, the first of a massive new class of battleship

Mahatma Gandhi, confronted by racial discrimination in South Africa, launches a programme of passive resistance (satyagraha)

President Roosevelt sends a fleet of warships on a goodwill tour of the world that also demonstrates US power

The first Model T Ford rolls off the production line at the Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit

Louis Blériot is the first to fly across the English Channel, winning the £1000 prize offered by the Daily Mail

Winston Churchill becomes home secretary in Asquith's Liberal government

Japan annexes Korea as a colony, to be controlled by a Japanese governor-general

Shortly before his death (in 1750) J.S. Bach completes his Mass in B Minor, worked on over many years

By the time of his death the prolific output of Domenico Scarlatti includes 555 sonatas, all but a few for his own instrument, the harpsichord

Joseph Haydn enters the service of the Esterházy family, and stays with them for twenty-nine years

6-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart plays for the Habsburg empress Maria Theresa

The intensely dramatic music of Gluck's Orfeo ed Eurydice introduces a much needed reform in the conventions of opera

Johann Sebastian Bach's youngest son, Johann Christian, moves to London and becomes known as the English Bach

7-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart begins a three-year concert tour of Europe

Goethe's romantic novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, brings him an immediate European reputation
Goethe's play Götz von Berlichingen, a definitive work of Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress), has its debut

Figaro makes his first appearance on stage in Beaumarchais' The Barber of Seville

English historian Edward Gibbon publishes the first volume of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, now 25, leaves Salzburg to settle in Vienna

German philosopher Immanuel Kant publishes the first of his three 'critiques', The Critique of Pure Reason

12-year-old Ludwig van Beethoven publishes his first composition, Piano Variations on a March by Dressler

Friedrich von Schiller's youthful and anarchic play The Robbers causes a sensation when performed in Mannheim

Mozart's Marriage of Figaro premieres in Vienna and then has a huge success in Pragueå

Mozart's opera Don Giovanni has its premiere in Prague

Mozart's opera Così fan Tutte has its premiere in Vienna, in the court theatre of Joseph II

Joseph Haydn sets off for England, where impresario Johann Peter Salomon presents his London symphonies

Mozart dies, at the age of just 35, leaving his Requiem unfinished

A stranger arrives in Vienna with a mysterious commission for Mozart to write a requiem mass, just months before the composer's death

Mozart's opera The Magic Flute has its premiere in Vienna in a popular theatre run by the librettist, Emanuel Shikaneder

Beethoven leaves Bonn and goes to Vienna to study composition with Haydn

Goethe and Schiller become friends, and together create the movement known as Weimar classicism

Virtuoso violinist Nicolo Paganini gives his first public performances, in churches in his native Genoa

Beethoven makes his first public appearance in Vienna as a pianist, playing either his first or second piano concerto

English poets Wordsworth and Coleridge jointly publish Lyrical Ballads, a milestone in the Romantic movement

Beethoven seeks medical advice for a very alarming condition, an increasing deafness

Beethoven changes the dedication of his third symphony on hearing that his hero, Napoleon, has made himself an emperor

The first version of Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio, is performed in Vienna under the title Leonore

Beethoven's sixth symphony (the Pastoral) has its first performance in Vienna

Beethoven's Mass in D (the Missa Solemnis) has its first performance in Vienna, though still incomplete The final version of Beethoven's opera Fidelio has its premiere in Vienna

Rossini's opera The Barber of Seville has its premiere in Rome

English poet John Keats dies in Rome at the age of twenty-five

Carl Maria von Weber's opera Der Freischutz has its premiere in Berlin

Austrian composer Franz Schubert writes the song cycle Die Schöne Müllerin ('The beautiful miller's wife’)

12-year-old Hungarian pianist Franz Liszt wins a reputation as a virtuoso performer

Beethoven's ninth symphony (the Choral, because of its finale, setting Schiller's Ode to Joy) has its first performance in Vienna

Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini moves to Paris, where he becomes director of the Théatre Italien

Franz Schubert composes his 'Great' C major symphony (previously often attributed to 1828)

Carl Maria von Weber's opera Oberon has its premiere (in London, at Covent Garden)

German composer Felix Mendelssohn visits the Hebrides and see's Fingal's Cave, later the theme of his Hebrides Overture

Gioacchino Rossini's opera William Tell has its premiere in Paris

The Symphonie fantastique by French composer Hector Berlioz has its premiere in Paris

The full text of Goethe's Faust, Parts 1 and 2, is published a few months after the poet's death

Robert Schumann's first published composition is Papillons ('Butterflies'), twelve short dance pieces for piano

In his essay, Nature, Ralph Waldo Emerson sets out the fundamentals of the philosophy of Transcendentalism

Polish composer Frédéric Chopin completes his Preludes under difficult conditions in Majorca

Robert Schumann composes the song cycle Frauenliebe und -Leben ('Woman's Love and Life’)

Robert Schumann marries the pianist Clara Wieck, daughter of his first teacher

The success of the opera Nabucco, premiered in Milan, is a turning point in the fortunes of Giuseppe Verdi

Mendelssohn's overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream, amplified now with incidental music, is greeted as a masterpiece at a performance of the play in Potsdam

The Flying Dutchman is the first of Richard Wagner's major operas to be staged, with its premiere in Dresden

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels meet in Paris and become life-long friends

Mendelssohn's oratorio Elijah has its premiere in England, in the city of Birmingham

In Vienna the younger Johann Strauss succeeds his father as the Waltz King

Giuseppe Verdi's opera Rigoletto, based on a play by Victor Hugo, is a huge success at its premiere in Venice

Giuseppe Verdi's opera Il Trovatore is a success at its premiere in Rome

Robert Schumann throws himself into the Rhine, in an attempt to commit suicide, and spends the last two years of his life in an asylum

Hector Berlioz completes his 4-hour opera The Trojans (not performed as a complete work until 1890)

The opera Faust, by French composer Charles Gounod, has its premiere in Paris

Unpublished American poet Emily Dickinson writes more than 300 poems within the year

Leo Tolstoy publishes the first volume of his epic novel War and Peace, following the lives of several aristocratic families during the Napoleonic wars

Modest Mussorgsky composes his orchestral work St John's Night on the Bare Mountain, based on a story by Gogol

French author Paul Verlaine wins a reputation with his first published collection, Poémes saturniens ('Saturnine Poems’)

Young French artists Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir paint together in the open air at La Grenouillère, developing the Impressionist style

Giuseppe Verdi's opera Aida, is commissioned for the Cairo opera house, part of the process of Egypt becoming westernized

Johann Strauss's operetta Die Fledermaus has its premiere in Vienna

Mussorgsky composes Pictures at an Exhibition as a piece for piano in memory of an exhibition by the Russian painter Victor Hartmann

Georges Bizet's opera Carmen has its premiere in Paris and meets at first with a lukewarm response

Johannes Brahms' first symphony has its premiere in Karlsruhe

Richard Wagner's sequence of four operas, The Ring of the Nibelungen, has its first complete performance at Bayreuth

Czech composer Anton Dvorák writes his first set of Slavonic Dances, originally as piano duets

The Aesthetic Movement and 'art for art's sake', attitudes personified above all by Whistler and Wilde, are widely mocked and satirized in Britain

Austrian composer Gustav Mahler conducts the premiere in Budapest of his first symphony, described as a 'symphonic poem’

The tone poem Don Juan, by the 25-year-old Richard Strauss, has a passionately mixed response at its premiere in Weimar

Dvorák takes a job in New York as director of the National Conservatory, returning to Prague in 1895

Anton Dvorák's Ninth Symphony, subtitled 'From the New World', has its first performance in New York

Giacomo Puccini has his first success when his opera Manon Lescaut opens in Turin

Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky dies after a short illness, possibly from cholera or perhaps in sinister circumstances that remain the subject of controversy

In Falstaff Giuseppe Verdi writes his last opera, and his only comedy since the early days of his career.

Claude Debussy's tone poem L'Après-midi d'un faune has its premiere in Paris

Swan Lake is performed in St Petersburg in its definitive version, with choreography shared between Lucien Petipa and Lev Ivanov

Jean Sibelius's 'symphonic legend' The Swan of Tuonela has its premiere in Helsinki

Rachmaninov's First Symphony has a disastrous premiere in St Petersburg, probably caused by the incompetence of Glazunov as conductor

Edward Elgar teases with the word 'enigma' printed at the head of his orchestral Variations on an Original Theme

Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg composes the string sextet Verklärte Nacht

Jean Sibelius's Finlandia stirs national instincts in Helsinki

David Belasco's play Madame Butterfly has its premiere in New York, and is subsequently seen in London by Giacomo Puccini

Sigmund Freud publishes one of his most significant works, The Interpretation of Dreams

Giacomo Puccini's Tosca brings in the new century with a January premiere in Rome

Sergei Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto gives him renewed confidence after the disaster of his First Symphony in 1897

Vast crowds line the streets for the Milan funeral of a national hero, the 87-year-old composer Giuseppe Verdi

The play Cathleen ni Houlihan, by W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory, fosters Irish nationalism

Maurice Ravel sets to music romantic oriental poems by Tristan Klingsor in his song-cycle Shéhérazade

Alban Berg and Anton Webern study composition with Arnold Schoenberg in Vienna

Alexander Scriabin completes his Third Symphony, The Divine Poem, which is given its first performance in Paris in 1905

Gustav Mahler's cycle of five songs, Kindertotenlieder, is its first performance in Vienna

Claude Debussy completes the three symphonic sketches forming La Mer

Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev presents five concerts of Russian music in Paris

Arnold Schoenberg abandons tonality in his String Quartet No. 2

Sergei Rachmaninov premieres his Third Piano Concerto during his tour of the USA as a pianist

Arnold Schoenberg composes his opera for a single voice, Erwartung, which remains unperformed until 1924 in Prague

Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Golden Cockerel has its premiere in Moscow

Alban Berg and Anton Webern follow Schoenberg in developing atonal music

Giacomo Puccini's opera Girl of the Golden West premieres in New York

Fritz Kreisler is the soloist in the first performance of Edward Elgar's Violin Concerto

Gustav Mahler conducts in Munich the first performance of his Eighth Symphony, subsequently known as the 'Symphony of a Thousand’

The Firebird brings together Fokine (choreography), Stravinsky (music) and Golovine and Bakst (sets and costumes)