It was a watershed year for music--both in the concert hall and opera house. There were the premieres of Brahms’ first symphony and Wagner’s four-evening-long Ring cycle.  Gustav Mahler’s first significant score made its appearance, Grieg and Dvorak produced their first major works to be acclaimed outside their own countries, and a new French opera launched Tchaikovsky on a stream of works on the subject of “fate.”  

The year . . . was 1876, and in the eyes of many, it heralded a new age for classical music, whose impact we still feel today.