A Little Night Music

As familiar to our ears as the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony or Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, the first movement of Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik exemplifies the essence of the Classical era. Completed on August 10, 1787, it is an almost perfect serenade, harkening back to those of Mozart’s Salzburg years—characterized by pure joy and free from the conflicting emotions found in many of his later works. “A little night music” is a literal translation of Mozart’s entry for the piece in his Thematic Catalogue (“Eine kleine Nacht Musik”); but this is merely descriptive (“a short notturno”) and never intended as a formal title. The first edition was published in 1837, forty-­ six years after Mozart’s death.