Eine kleine Nachtmusik — "a little night music" — is so familiar it's almost wallpaper: bright, elegant, endlessly borrowed for adverts and ringtones. It also hides a genuine loss.
The catalogue that gives it away
Mozart kept a meticulous handwritten catalogue of his own works. His entry for this serenade, written in 1787, lists five movements. The version we all know has four. Somewhere between Mozart's desk and us, one movement — a minuet and trio — went missing, and has never been found. We know it existed only because Mozart himself wrote it down.
A little night music for what?
The title itself may be a description rather than a name — "a little serenade" is roughly what the German means. And we don't actually know what occasion it was for. One of the most performed pieces in the world is, at heart, a work with a lost movement and an unknown purpose, composed in the year Mozart's father died.
Wear it
Our Eine kleine Nachtmusik tee sets the rising opening as hand-drawn notation. See it in Wearable Music.