Eine kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525

Mozart entered the serenade in his thematic catalogue on 10 August 1787, in Vienna, while he was at work on Don Giovanni; no commission, occasion or patron is recorded for it. His own entry lists five movements, one more than survives: a minuet was removed from the autograph at some point and has never been found. The work was not published in his lifetime and appeared only in 1827, from André in Offenbach, by which time the words he had written at the head of the catalogue entry had attached themselves permanently to the piece.