Eine kleine Nachtmusik
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)

Mozart is Mozart, what more is there to say? He was probably the greatest musical mind the world has ever seen. A genius who in his short life composed over 600 works, and ‘Eine kleine Nachtmusik’ is one of them. This piece rises above all other composer’s works in the serenade genre, and to say it’s famous is almost an understatement.
    Perhaps it is also performed a bit too often for its own good. At least in musical circles it is fashionable to turn up one's nose at this piece of ‘mealtime music’. We used to do the same, until we once needed just such a piece (“long and easy to play”) for a well paid ‘mealtime gig’ in the beginning of the Avanti career. Our repertoire is for natural reasons very physically demanding, forcing us to spend fortunes on massage and the like, and this time we wanted to save our hands for ‘higher purposes’ as much as possible.
    Well, Mozart really made fools of us! When we started to look in to the piece we understood we had never really bothered to listen to it before. For instance, the piece is loaded with small, intricate contrapuntal lines that sometimes are hidden by the compact sound projected by many strings playing together. On a plucked instrument such as the guitar, these kind of lines are automatically more chiselled out. Then by removing some of the many repeats, we suddenly had in our hands a very interesting, equilibristic sounding concert piece!
    So, did the piece at least turn out to be easy to play? Well, what do you think...?

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