Who wrote Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star? The real story of the tune

Mozart did not write “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” The tune is an old French song, and no one knows who made it up. The English words are a poem by Jane Taylor, printed in 1806. Mozart wrote a set of 12 variations on the tune for piano when he was about 25. That is how his name became attached to it.

The short answer

• The tune: a French song, “Ah! vous dirai-je, maman,” first printed in 1761. The composer is unknown.
• The words: a poem called “The Star,” by the English writer Jane Taylor, from 1806.
• Mozart’s part: 12 variations on the tune for piano, written in the early 1780s.

The French song

The tune first appeared in print in Paris in 1761, with no words and no composer’s name. A few years later, it was printed with a French poem that begins “Ah! vous dirai-je, maman.” That means “Oh! Shall I tell you, Mama.”

In the children’s version of the French song, a child tells her mother that grown-ups want her to reason like an adult. She says that sweets are worth more than reason.

The English words

Jane Taylor was an English poet. She and her sister Ann wrote books of verse for small children. In 1806, they published a book called Rhymes for the Nursery. It held Jane’s poem “The Star.”

The poem has five verses. Most people know only the first.

Some years later, people began to sing the poem to the French tune. The two were printed together in a songbook in the 1830s.

What Mozart did

Mozart knew the French song. In the early 1780s, when he was living in Vienna, he wrote a piece for piano based on it. The piece plays the tune in a plain way and then changes it 12 times.

A set of changes like this is called a theme and variations. Mozart may have written it for his piano students.

A common story says that Mozart wrote “Twinkle” when he was five. It is not true. He did write his first small pieces at five, and that may be how the story began.

What to listen for in Mozart’s variations

• The theme: the tune you know, played without decoration.
• Variation 1: the right hand runs in quick notes.
• Variation 2: the left hand takes over the quick notes.
• Variation 8: the music turns to a minor key and sounds sad.
• Variation 11: slow and songlike.
• Variation 12: fast, in a new beat of three, to finish.

Three songs, one tune

Sing these three songs one after another. They share the tune.

• “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”
• “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep”
• The alphabet song

The alphabet song was first published with this tune in Boston in 1835.

Other composers who used the tune

Saint-Saëns hid it in “Fossils,” a part of The Carnival of the Animals. Read The Carnival of the Animals listening guide.

Ernő Dohnányi, a Hungarian composer, wrote a piece for piano and orchestra called Variations on a Nursery Tune. It begins with a huge, serious introduction. Then the piano enters with “Twinkle,” played with one finger of each hand.

Shinichi Suzuki made it the first piece in his violin books. Students play the tune in several rhythms before they play it plain. For the notes on three instruments, read Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star: letter notes. Read the Suzuki method explained for parents.

How to play it

On a piano, start on middle C. The first line uses these keys:

C C G G A A G, F F E E D D C

Print the piano keyboard chart to find the notes.

Things to do together

Spot the change. Play Mozart’s variations. After each one, ask what changed: the speed, the hand with the fast notes, or the mood.

Make a variation. Sing “Twinkle” in four ways: fast, slow, in a whisper, and with a clap on every note.

Change the mood. On a piano, play the tune and swap every E for an E-flat and every A for an A-flat. Each one is the black key just to the left. The tune turns sad, as it does in Mozart’s eighth variation.

Read the whole poem. Find all five verses of “The Star” and read them aloud.

Print and play

Read Mozart for kids for his life and the pieces to play first. To learn how the notes are written down, read how to read music for parents.

For more composers by era, see classical composers for kids.