Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s dozen
Variations on ‘Ah vous dirai-je, maman’, on the melody known to British children as ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star’, were composed in Vienna during either 1781 or 1782. There is here not Daquin’s naivety but a seeming ingenuousness that is maintained until the end, although some resourceful feats of variation writing are carried off behind the facade of simplicity; note in particular the variation in the minor, laid out in string quartet style.
from notes by Max Harrison © 1986
