1586 in music

• Lodovico Agostini – Le lagrime del peccatore (The Tears of the Sinner), fourth book for six voices, Op. 12 (Venice: Giacomo Vincenti & Ricciardo Amadino)
• Felice Anerio – First book of canzonettas for four voices (Venice: Giacomo Vincenti & Ricciardo Amandino)
• Giammateo Asola
  • Psalms (Venice: Ricciardo Amadino), also includes a Te Deum
  • Missae octonis compositae tonis for four voices (Giacomo Vincenti & Ricciardo Amadino)
  • Officium defunctorum for four voices (Venice: Giacomo Vincenti & Ricciardo Amadino)
• Lodovico Balbi – Cappriccios for six voices (Venice: Angelo Gardano)
• Giulio Belli – First book of masses for five voices (Venice: Angelo Gardano)
• Camillo Cortellini – Third book of madrigals for five voices (Ferrara: Vittorio Baldini)
• Jacobus Gallus – Opus musicum, volume 1 (Prague: Georg Nigrinus).
• Ruggiero Giovannelli – First book of madrigals for five voices (Venice: Angelo Gardano)
• Marc'Antonio Ingegneri
  • First book of motets for four voices (Venice: Angelo Gardano)
  • First book of madrigals for six voices (Venice: Angelo Gardano)
• Simon Bar Jona Madelka – Seven Penitential Psalms for five voices (Altdorf: Nikolaus Knorr)
• Jacques Mauduit – Chansonnettes mesurées de Jan-Antoine de Baïf for four voices (Paris: Le Roy & Ballard)
• Rinaldo del Mel – Second book of madrigaletti for three voices (Venice: Angelo Gardano)
• Philippe de Monte – Eleventh book of madrigals for five voices (Venice: Angelo Gardano)
• Giovanni Maria Nanino
  • Motets for three and five voices (Venice: Angelo Gardano)
  • Third book of madrigals for five voices (Venice: Angelo Gardano)
• Lucas Osiander the Elder – Fünfftzig Geistliche Lieder und Psalmen (Fifty sacred songs and psalms) for four voices (Nuremberg: Katharina Gerlach)
• Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina – Second book of madrigals for four voices
• Nicola Parma – Sacrae cantiones..., book two (Venice: Giacomo Vincenti & Ricciardo Amadino)
• Costanzo Porta – Fourth book of madrigals for five voices (Venice: Angelo Gardano)
• Giaches de Wert – Eighth book of madrigals for five voices

• Anthony Holborne – The Countess of Pembroke's Funerals

• January 20 – Johann Hermann Schein, German composer (died 1630)^[1]
• July 1 – Claudio Saracini, lutenist, singer and composer (died 1630)

Probable

• Andrea Falconieri, composer (died 1653)

• August 27 – George de La Hèle, Franco-Flemish composer
• November – Bernardino de Figueroa, composer (born c. 1510)