Did Mozart write Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?

It is one of the most famous “fun facts” in music: little Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the child genius, dashed off Twinkle Twinkle Little Star before he could tie his own shoes. It is a lovely story. Unfortunately, almost every part of it is wrong.

The short answer

Mozart did not write the tune. The melody is a French song called Ah! vous dirai-je, maman, first published in 1761, when Mozart was only about five. The English lyrics were written by Jane Taylor. Mozart’s link is a piece he wrote based on the tune, and he wasn’t a child when he wrote it.

The real story

Mozart’s work is called Twelve Variations on “Ah vous dirai-je, Maman”, catalogued as K. 265. It takes the simple French melody and dresses it up twelve different ways for solo piano. For a long time scholars thought he wrote it in 1778 while staying in Paris. But a study of his handwriting in the original manuscript, by musicologist Wolfgang Plath, pointed to 1781 or 1782, when Mozart was around 25 and living in Vienna. It was published there in 1785.

The words have a separate history. Jane Taylor wrote a poem called “The Star”, published in 1806 in Rhymes for the Nursery, a collection she created with her sister Ann Taylor in London. Its opening lines are the ones children still sing today. At some point the English poem and the French tune were paired up, and a nursery classic was born.

Here is the twist most people never notice: you already know this tune under at least two other names. The same melody is used for the Alphabet Song and for Baa, Baa, Black Sheep. Sing them one after another and you will hear it straight away. Three of the best-known children’s songs in English share one 18th-century French melody.

Why people get it wrong

Mozart is famous for being a child prodigy who was composing while still very young, so a simple children’s tune seems like exactly the sort of thing he would have written as a boy. Add the fact that his variations are a staple of piano lessons, and the connection sticks.

Recordings and concert programmes often label the piece simply as “Mozart’s Twinkle Variations”, which makes it sound as though he wrote the original. In reality, Mozart was doing what composers often did: taking a popular tune everybody knew and showing off what he could do with it. He was one of several composers who did exactly that with this melody.

“Mozart didn’t write it. He just took a nursery tune and showed off with it twelve times. Fair enough, really.”