The year 1651 in music involved some significant events.

• none listed

• Giovanni Battista Granata – Nuova scielta di capricci armonici..., a collection of guitar music, published in Bologna
• Claudio Monteverdi – Madrigali e canzonette a due e tre voci del signor Claudio Monteverde già Maestro di Cappella della Serenissima Republica di Venetia... Libro nono (Ninth book of madrigals for five voices) (Venice: Alessandro Vincenti), published posthumously
• Stefano Pasino – Motetti a 2. 3. 4. concertati..., Op. 6 (Venice: Francesco Magni for Gardano)
• John Playford – The English Dancing Master

• none listed

• Francesco Cavalli – premier of La Calisto, Venice (November 28) and L'Eritrea

• February 25 – Johann Philipp Krieger, composer (died 1735)
• April 15 – Domenico Gabrielli, cellist and composer (died 1690)
• June – Johann Georg Ahle, organist and composer (died 1706)
• July 22 – Ferdinand Tobias Richter, organist and composer (died 1711)
• December 28 – Johann Krieger, organist and composer (died 1735)

• January 17 – Johannes Hieronymus Kapsberger, lutenist (born c. 1580)
• October 6 – Heinrich Albert (born 1604), German composer and poet
• November 18 – Bonifatio Ceretti, alto castrato (intended Endimione in La Calisto)
• December 17 – Ennemond Gaultier, French lutenist and composer (born c. 1575)
• December 19 – Giovanni Faustini, librettist for Francesco Cavalli (born 1615)
• probable – Martin Peerson, English composer, organist, and virginalist (born c. 1571)