Deaths
- January 14 – Joaquín Turina, composer, 66
- January 19 – Charles Price Jones, hymn-writer, 83
- February 1 – Herbert Stothart, conductor and composer, 63
- February 11 – Giovanni Zenatello, opera tenor, 73
- March 7 – Sol Bloom, music industry entrepreneur, 78
- March 20 – Irving Fazola, jazz clarinetist, 36 (heart attack)
- March 28 – Grigoraş Dinicu, violinist and composer, 59
- April 3 – Basil Harwood, organist and composer, 89
- May 10 - Emilio de Gogorza, operatic baritone, 74
- June 2 – Dynam-Victor Fumet, organist and composer, 82
- June 4 – Erwin Lendvai, composer and conductor, 66
- June 9 – Maria Cebotari, operatic soprano, 39 (cancer)
- July 7 – Bunk Johnson, jazz trumpeter, exact age unknown
- July 9 – Fritz Hart, composer, 75
- July 18 – Vítězslav Novák, composer, 78
- September 5 - Walter Widdop, operatic tenor, 51
- September 8 – Richard Strauss, composer
- September 11 – Michael Hayvoronsky, violinist, conductor and composer (born 1892)
- September 12 – Harry T. Burleigh, composer and singer
- September 19 – Nikos Skalkottas, Greek composer, student of Arnold Schoenberg
- September 24 – Pierre de Bréville, composer, 88
- September 28
- Ivie Anderson, jazz singer, 44 (asthma)
- Nancy Dalberg, Danish composer, 68
- October 1 – Buddy Clark, American singer, 38 (plane crash)
- October 4
- Chris Smith, composer, 69
- Edmund Eysler, Austrian composer, 75
- October 20 – Sam Collins, blues singer and guitarist, 62
- October 27 – Ginette Neveu, violin virtuoso, 30 (plane crash)
- November 25 – Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, American tap dancer, singer and actor
- December 6 – Lead Belly, folk and blues musician, 61
- December 11 – Fiddlin' John Carson, country musician, 81
- date unknown
- Euphemia Allen, composer
- Alice Cucini, operatic contralto
- King Solomon Hill, blues musician (born 1897)
Read more about this topic: 1949 In Music
Famous quotes containing the word deaths:
“On almost the incendiary eve
Of deaths and entrances ...”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“I sang of death but had I known
The many deaths one must have died
Before he came to meet his own!”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Death is too much for men to bear, whereas women, who are practiced in bearing the deaths of men before their own and who are also practiced in bearing life, take death almost in stride. They go to meet death—that is, they attempt suicide—twice as often as men, though men are more “successful” because they use surer weapons, like guns.”
—Roger Rosenblatt (b. 1940)