Eine kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525

"Eine kleine Nachtmusik" (Serenade No. 13 for strings in G major), K. 525, is a 1787 composition for a chamber ensemble by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German title means "a little serenade," though it is often rendered more literally but less accurately as "a little night music." The serenade was completed in Vienna on 10 August 1787. Hildesheimer suggests that this serenade was a commission, whose origin and first performance were not recorded. The traditionally used name of the work comes from the entry Mozart made for it in his personal catalog "Eine kleine Nacht-Musik." Mozart almost certainly was not giving the piece a special title, but only entering in his records that he had completed a little serenade. The work was not published until about 1827, long after Mozarts death, as part of a large bundle of her husband's compositions sold to the publisher Johann Andr in Offenbach am Main in 1799 by Mozart's widow Constanze. Today the serenade is widely performed and recorded; indeed both Jacobson and Hildesheimer opine that the serenade is the most popular of all Mozart's works. Of the music, Hildesheimer writes, even if we hear it on every street corner, its high quality is undisputed, an occasional piece from a light but happy pen.