Mozart's Lullaby

First recorded: 1796

Origin: Germany

Lyrics

Sleep, my little prince, fall asleep,The lambs and the small birds are resting.Garden and meadow have fallen silent,Not one small bee is humming now.The moon, with her silvery shine,Peeps in at the window.Sleep in the silvery shine,Sleep, my little prince, fall asleep.

In the castle too, by now,Everything lies rocked into slumber.Not a mouse is stirring,The cellar and the kitchen are empty.Only in the lady's maid's roomA soft, melting "ah" can be heard.What sort of "ah" might that be?Sleep, my little prince, fall asleep.

Who is more fortunate than you?Nothing but pleasure and rest!Playthings and sugar in plenty,And carriages, too, at the door.Everything seen to and readySo that my prince will not cry.What will the future bring then?Sleep, my little prince, fall asleep.

History and Meaning

From 1862 until well into the twentieth century, this lullaby sat in Mozart's catalogue as K. 350. It is not his. Current editions of the Kochel catalogue file it among the doubtful and spurious works as Anh. C 8.48, and how a Berlin song came to wear Mozart's name is the better story.

The German words, "Schlafe, mein Prinzchen, schlaf ein", are by the poet and playwright Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter (1746 to 1797), written for his play Esther. The melody was printed in Berlin in 1796 under the name of Bernhard Flies. Mozart had been dead five years.

Origins

Gotter's text was in print by 1795, four years after Mozart died, which is the plainest objection to the old credit. No manuscript in Mozart's hand has ever been found either.

His name got attached in the 1820s. Constanze Mozart and her second husband, Georg Nikolaus von Nissen, assembled the first full Mozart biography, published in 1828, and the lullaby went in on the strength of a copy rather than an autograph. Ludwig von Kochel numbered it 350 in his 1862 catalogue, which fixed the error in place. The musicologist Max Friedlaender traced the melody back to the 1796 Flies print in the 1890s, and later editions of the Kochel catalogue moved the song into the group of works wrongly credited to Mozart.

Meaning & Interpretation

The song is sung over a cradle in a castle. The first verse quiets the outdoors, lambs, birds, garden and meadow, until not even a bee is humming. The second verse works through the house, cellar and kitchen empty, not a mouse stirring.

Then Gotter aims a joke over the child's head. From the lady's maid's room comes "ein schmelzendes Ach", a melting sigh, and the singer wonders what sort of "ah" that might be. The last verse counts up what the little prince already has, sugar, playthings, carriages, a household arranged so he never needs to cry, then asks what the future will bring. Sung sweetly it sounds doting. Coming from a stage play, the flattery may be drier than it seems.

Did Mozart write Mozart's Lullaby?

No. Gotter's words were published in 1795 and the melody appeared in Berlin in 1796, both after Mozart's death in 1791, and no score in his hand exists. It carried the number K. 350 for over a century because of a copy circulated by his widow and her second husband in the 1820s. The Kochel catalogue now lists it as Anh. C 8.48, among the spurious works.

Who composed the melody, then?

That is unsettled. The 1796 Berlin edition names Bernhard Flies, a Berlin physician and amateur composer, and Friedlaender's research made Flies the standard answer for most of the twentieth century. Later scholarship argues for Johann Friedrich Anton Fleischmann (1766 to 1798), who set other texts by Gotter, on the view that Flies printed a tune already written. Neither case is closed.

Where do the English words on this page come from?

They are this site's own translation of Gotter's German. The original is long out of copyright, but the English versions circulating in songbooks and on lyrics sites have unclear origins, so we translated it fresh rather than reprint one. Our version follows the German closely and does not copy its rhyme scheme.