1590 in music
Events 
October 16 – Carlo Gesualdo, Italian composer of madrigals, murders his wife and her lover in flagrante delicto.
 Approximate peak year of the late Italian madrigal style, as represented by Gesualdo, Luzzaschi, Monteverdi, Marenzio, Monte and others.
 The serpent is invented by Canon Edmé Guillaume in Auxerre, France – it was a common instrument in Western European churches for the next several hundred years.
 Baldassare Donato becomes maestro di cappella at St. Mark's in Venice, taking over on the death of Gioseffo Zarlino.
 Claudio Monteverdi, Italian composer, is engaged as string player at court of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga at Mantua.
 Emilio de' Cavalieri, Italian composer, produces Tasso's Aminto, likely with his own music, for the Medici, at Carnival in Florence.
Giovanni Gabrieli arranges the posthumous publication of works by his uncle Andrea Gabrieli, in Venice.

Publications 
 Giovanni Croce – Mascarate piacevoli et ridicolose per il carnevale
 Giovanni Gabrieli publishes works in the cori spezzati style, in Venice.
 Hans Leo Hassler – Canzonette (published in Nuremberg)
 Orlande de Lassus, Franco-Flemish composer, publishes Neue teutsche, unnd etliche frantzösische Gesäng, a collection of secular songs for six voices, in Munich 
 Claudio Monteverdi – Il secondo libro de madrigali a cinque voci di Claudio Monteverde Cremonese discepolo del Sig.r Ingegneri  – (second book of madrigals a5) (published in Venice).
 Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina publishes his fifth book of masses, in Rome.
 Orazio Vecchi publishes a book of motets for 10 voices, in Venice.
 Thomas Watson – The first sett, Of Italian Madrigalls Englished, published in London.

Classical music

Births 
July 3 – Lucrezia Orsina Vizzana, singer, organist and composer (d. 1662)
probable
Manuel Machado, composer (d. 1646)
Johann Schop, violinist and composer (d. 1667)
Loreto Vittori, Italian composer (d. 1670)
Caterina Assandra, Italian composer (died c. 1618)

Deaths 
January 20 – Giambattista Benedetti, Italian scientist and music theorist (born 1530)
February 4 – Gioseffo Zarlino, Italian music theorist and composer, maestro di cappella at St. Mark's in Venice (born 1517)
September 20
Lodovico Agostini, Italian composer (born 1534)
Ascanio Trombetti, Italian composer (born 1544)
probable – Maddalena Casulana, Italian lutenist, singer and composer (born c 1544)

Music