The year 1689 in music involved some significant events.

Events

• September 1 – Johann Joseph Vilsmayr begins work at the Hofkapelle in Salzburg.
• Nicolaus Bruhns is appointed town organist at Husum.

Published popular music

• Henry Purcell – Musick's Handmaid

Classical music

• Jean-Henri d'Anglebert – Pièces de clavecin
• Giovanni Battista Bassani – Giona (oratorio)
• Giovanni Paolo Colonna – Sacre lamentationi della Settimana santa a voce sola
• Arcangelo Corelli – Op. 3, 12 trio sonatas
• Michel Richard Delalande
  • Audite caeli, S.7
  • Quam dilecta S.12
  • De Profundis S.23
• Domenico Gabrielli
  • Seven ricercari for solo cello
  • Cello Sonata No. 1 and No. 2
• Johann Caspar Kerll – Missae sex, cum instrumentis concertantibus, a collection of concertato masses
• Johann Kuhnau – Neuer Clavier-Übung, erster Theil
• Michel Lambert
  • Airs de cour
  • Airs à une, II. III. et IV. parties avec la basse-continue
• Giovanni Battista Vitali – Artificii musicali (Op. 13)

Opera

• Antonio Caldara – L'Argene
• Henri Desmarest – La Diane de Fontainebleau
• Henry Purcell – Dido and Aeneas (libretto by Nahum Tate, first performed in London)
• Poul Christian Schindler – Der vereinigte Götterstreit
• Agostino Steffani – La Lotta d'Ercole con Acheloo

Births

• February 27 – Pietro Gnocchi, composer (died 1775)
• September 30 – Jacques Aubert, composer (died 1753)
• November 3 – Johann Joseph Ignaz Brentner, composer (died 1742)
• December 23 – Joseph Bodin de Boismortier, composer (died 1755)
• date unknown – Edward Purcell, organist and co-founder of the Royal Society of Musicians (died 1740)

Deaths

• November 13 – Philipp von Zesen, hymn-writer (born 1619)