Eine kleine Nachtmusik

The Serenade No. 13 for Strings in G major K. 525 is one of the most popular compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It owes its nickname Eine kleine Nachtmusik to Mozart's entry in his catalogue of works: "A little night music, consisting of an Allegro.minuet and trio.-Romance.minuet and trio, and finale.-2 violini, viola e bassi." By Nachtmusik he translates into German the term serenade, which denotes a genre of light music that was traditionally performed in the evening and often outdoors, and was therefore often written for wind instruments. The "Kleine Nachtmusik," however, is written for a chamber ensemble of two violins, viola, cello, and double bass (the parts are usually multiplied today). Moreover, the artistry of the voice leading and the classical proportions of the movements also indicate that the work was conceived as sophisticated chamber music rather than as pure, "light" light music.

The composition was finished on 10 August 1787 in Vienna, while Mozart was working on Don Giovanni. It is unknown, however, for what occasion or to whom Mozart wrote it. It was probably never performed during his lifetime.

Mozart's catalogue of works shows that the Serenade originally comprised five movements. The pages for the original second movement are missing from the autograph; it is unclear whether they were lost or deliberately torn out. An even violent removal, of which one can read in parts, seems rather unlikely, since the leaves were never paginated anyway. Alfred Einstein suspected that Mozart's Minuet in B flat major, K. Anh. 136 (498a) No. 3, was a piano reduction of the lost second movement of the "Little Night Music". Wolfgang Plath and Wolfgang Rehm place this minuet in its place within the sonata in the "New Mozart Edition" among the doubtful works (Series X, Work Group 29, Division 2, i.e. vol. 112) and refer in the preface to August Eberhard Müller (1767-1817) as the arranger and partial author of the sonata.

Popular reception

Because of its popularity and accessibility, the piece, and in particular the first movement, is often used in television commercials, movies, television and video games, for example in the rock song for acoustic guitar Classico by the American comedy duo Tenacious D, which is just under a minute long. However, the work only achieved a high level of popularity towards the end of the 19th century; as late as 1859, the work was completely unknown to the early Mozart biographer Otto Jahn (apart from the above-mentioned entry in the catalogue of works). The score was not printed until 1883 by Breitkopf & Härtel, and the individual parts were published by Peters around 1890. The work did not appear on concert schedules until 1895.

Recordings of works with added second movement

Christopher Hogwood, with the Academy of Ancient Music and the Salomon Quartet, recorded the Serenade with a minuet taken from Thomas Attwood's Lessons and Studies in Mozart. The accompanying trio was freely added. Roy Goodman and the Hanover Band recorded the Serenade with the 3rd movement (minuet and trio) of the Sonata K. 498a in an arrangement for string instrumentation.