The year 1728 in music involved some significant events.

Events

• 26 March – Johann Sebastian Bach revives his St John Passion (BWV 245, BC D 2c) with some textual and instrumentational changes.
• Giuseppe Tartini opens a school for violinists in Padua.
• Johann Georg Pisendel begins studying composition under Johann David Heinichen.
• Domenico Scarlatti returns to Rome, where he meets his first wife.
• Johann Joachim Quantz visits Berlin and performs in the presence of the Crown Prince of Prussia, who insists on taking lessons from him.
• Deafness forces Johann Mattheson to retire from his post as musical director of Hamburg Cathedral.
• In music theory, the circle of fifths is described by Johann David Heinichen, in his 1728 treatise Der Generalbass in der Composition; the first such description in Western European literature

Classical music

• Johann Sebastian Bach – Partita in D major, BWV 828
• Jean Francois Dandrieu – Pieces de Clavecin, Book 2
• Giovanni Antonio Guido – Scherzi armonici sopra le quattro staggioni dell'anno, Op. 3
• Jean-Marie Leclair – 12 Violin Sonatas, Op. 2
• Vincent Lübeck – Clavier Übung for harpsichord
• Michel Pignolet de Montéclair – Morte di Lucretia
• Jean-Philippe Rameau – Cantates Françaises
• Thomas Roseingrave – Voluntarys and Fugues
• Giuseppe Tartini – 6 Violin Concertos, Op. 1
• Georg Philipp Telemann
  • Der getreue Music-Meister (editor, continues through 1729) Hamburg: [Telemann].
    • Das Frauenzimmer verstimmt sich immer, song for voice and basso continuo, TWV 25:37, lection 5
    • Ich kann lachen, weinen, scherzen (cantata, words by M. von Ziegler), for soprano and basso continuo, TWV 20:15, lections 19–20.
    • Intrada, nebst burlesquer Suite (nicknamed "Gulliver Suite") for two violins unaccompanied, TWV 40:108
    • Säume nicht geliebte Schöne, song for voice and basso continuo), TWV 25:38, lection 21

Opera

• Bartolomeo Cordans – Ormisda
• Geminiano Giacomelli – Gianguir
• George Frideric Handel
  • Siroe, re di Persia, HWV 24
  • Tolomeo, re di Egitto
• Leonardo Leo
  • Catone in Utica
  • La pastorella commattuta, librettist Tommaso Mariani
• Johann Christoph Pepusch – The Beggar's Opera
• Leonardo Vinci
  • Catone in Utica
  • Didone Abandonnata
  • Medo

Musical theater

• The Beggar's Opera opened at Lincoln's Inn Fields on January 29 and ran for 62 performances

Births

• January 16 – Niccolò Piccinni, composer of over 100 operas (died 1800)
• January 17 – Johann Gottfried Müthel, keyboard virtuoso and composer (died 1788)
• September 21 – Louis Emmanuel Eadin, composer
• December 9 – Pietro Alessandro Guglielmi, composer (died 1804)
• December 21 – Hermann Raupach, composer (died 1778)
• December 25 – Johann Adam Hiller, composer (died 1804)

Deaths

• February 12 – Agostino Steffani, composer and diplomat (born 1653)
• August 15 – Marin Marais, composer and bass-viol player (born 1656)
• October 8 – Anne Danican Philidor, composer and founder of the Concert Spirituel (born 1681)
• November 19 – Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen, employer of Johann Sebastian Bach (born 1694) (smallpox)
• probable – Gaetano Greco, composer (born c. 1657)