Mozart's Early Musical Beginnings in the Nannerl Notenbuch.

In 1761, at the age of five, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed his earliest known pieces, which were written down in the Nannerl Notenbuch (Nannerl’s Music Book). The notebook had originally been compiled by Leopold Mozart as a teaching collection for his daughter Maria Anna “Nannerl” Mozart. As Wolfgang began experimenting at the keyboard, Leopold documented several short works attributed to him, preserving what are considered Mozart’s first compositions. These early pieces consist mainly of brief keyboard minuets and short movements, including works later catalogued as K. 1a through K. 1f. Because Wolfgang was still learning to write, Leopold notated the music himself while identifying the young composer. The pieces show simple melodic lines, basic harmonic patterns, and regular phrase structures typical of instructional keyboard music of the period. Despite their brevity, they demonstrate Mozart’s early ability to create balanced musical phrases. The entries in the Nannerl Notenbuch mark the beginning of Mozart’s documented compositional activity. Within the following year, he began performing publicly, including appearances in Munich and Vienna in 1762. The recordings of the 1761 pieces therefore represent the earliest stage of Mozart’s musical development. Why This Moment Matters The 1761 entries in the Nannerl Notenbuch preserve Mozart’s first known compositions, written when he was five years old.