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Piano sheet music for kids · Classical · Level 3: Notes below middle C
Eine kleine Nachtmusik
Free beginner piano sheet music: C major, 4/4, 9 bars. Press Play to hear it on a real piano, slow it down, or hear one hand at a time; click any note to start from there; print it for the music stand.
About this arrangement
The opening of Mozart’s serenade for strings from 1787, which all the instruments play together in a bold unison. Mozart wrote it in G major; here it is in C major. For the first four bars both hands play the same notes an octave apart, exactly as Mozart’s violins and cellos do: a leap between middle C and the G below, then a climb to the G above. In bars 5 to 8 the right hand sings the answering tune in quavers (eighth notes) and dotted crotchets while the left hand plays a bass note and a chord. Mozart’s trills are left out, and here the music comes home to C in bar 9 instead of running on.
Practice tip: Count the quaver rests. Start with finger 4 on middle C and the thumb on the G below; in bar 2 move the thumb up to middle C for the climb C, E, G (fingers 1, 3, 5). From bar 5 put finger 2 on middle C so the thumb is ready for each B, let the long notes sing and keep the three quavers after them light.
A short history
Mozart finished this serenade in Vienna on 10 August 1787, while he was working on the second act of his opera Don Giovanni. Nobody knows who it was written for or when it was first played. The name comes from the entry he made in his own catalogue of works, which begins “Eine kleine Nacht-Musick”: a little serenade, or, word for word, a little night music.
That catalogue entry lists five movements, but only four survive. A minuet that came second has been lost, and no one knows who removed it from the manuscript. The serenade was not printed until 1827, more than thirty years after Mozart’s death, by Johann André in Offenbach am Main.
Its opening, a rising arpeggio of the kind called a Mannheim rocket, is now one of the most recognised tunes in classical music.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1787
- Key
- C major
- Time signature
- 4/4
- Length
- 9 bars
- Tempo
- Allegro, crotchet = 112
- Difficulty
- Level 3: Notes below middle C (piece 51 of 201)
- Type
- Classical
- Hands
- Both: melody in the right hand, chords in the left
- Copyright
- Public domain tune; arrangement by Digital Greenhouse, free for personal and classroom use
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