1560 in music explained

Events

Innocentio Alberti takes up a position as cornettist at the Este court in Ferrara, following the dissolution of the Accademia degli Elevati in Padua.

Ippolito Chamaterò – First book of madrigals for five voices (Venice: Antonio Gardano)
Jacob Clemens non Papa – Tenth book of masses: Latin: Missa Quam pulchra es for four voices (Leuven: Pierre Phalèse), published posthumously
Claude Goudimel – Fourth book of psalms for four and five voices (Paris: Le Roy & Ballard)
Orlande de Lassus
- Fourth book of chansons for five and six voices (Louvain: Pierre Phalèse)
- First book of madrigals for four voices (Rome: Valerio Dorico)
Giovanni Paolo Paladino — First book of lute tablature, containing arrangements of pieces by various composers (Lyon: Simon Gorlier)
Francesco Portinaro – Fourth book of madrigals for five voices (Venice: Antonio Gardano)
Christoph Praetorius – Latin: De obitu reverendi viri Domini Philippi Melanthonis for four voices (Wittenberg: Georg Rhau), a funeral motet for Philip Melanchthon

January 29 – Scipione Dentice, keyboard composer (d. 1633)
August 10 – Hieronymus Praetorius, north German composer and organist (d. 1629)
date unknown
- William Brade, German composer of dance forms of the period (d. 1630)
- Antonio Coma, Italian composer (d. 1629)
- Peter Philips (c.1560/1561), eminent English composer, organist, and Catholic priest, the most published English composer in his time (d. 1628).
probable
- Giovanni Croce, Venetian composer (d. 1609)
- Lodovico Grossi da Viadana, Italian composer (d. 1627)

date unknown – Louis Bourgeois, composer of Calvinist hymn-tunes (born c.1510)
probable
- Marco Antonio Cavazzoni, organist and composer (born c.1490)
- Nicolas Gombert, composer (born c.1495)