Many sources argue that the music of a lullaby, under which more than one generation of Soviet children fell asleep, came out of the pen of the great Austrian composer. We checked whether this is so.

The fact that the authorship of the melody well familiar to millions belongs to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, can be read on many sites with collections audio recordings, texts songs and even in printed notes. Information got into the magazines "Murzilka" (1965), "Primary school" (1966) and a number of other publications. A separate one is dedicated to the Google Play Market application, in the description of which it is said: “Sleep, my joy, fall asleep ...” - the famous lullaby of V. A. Mozart, who has been helping children around the world for several centuries. ”

It is difficult to argue with the last fact - indeed, this song is known not only in Russia. Under the German name Schlafe, Mein Prinzchen, Schlaf Ein (“Sleep, my prince, fall asleep”) She is known and enough Popular Abroad. They even perform a lullaby Opera singers.

And it was the “Tsarevich” that was mentioned in the first Russian translation of the text of the song, performed in 1924 Sofia Sviridenko. However, there was also “joy” in the poem, but in the end. Only a year passed, and in the next edition of the Tsarevich replaced "Darling" -Still, the case took place in the country that had just overthrow the autocracy. The option with the “beloved” did not take root-either because of the excessive for lullaby intimacy, or because of the inability to sing such a song to the girl. One way or another, but the gender-neutral line “Sleep, my joy, sleep” (as it is believed, borrowed from Balmont) soon went up in the title and stayed there forever. Made by Vsevolod Rozhdestvensky in 1932 a completely new translation The lullaby (“Sleep, my son, without worries”) could not compete with the text of Sofia Sviridenko.

Over the next decades, the lullaby has become truly in the USSR People's, and her entering the cartoon 1982 "True remedy" (performed by Clara Rumyanova) only fixed this status. The peak of glory for the lullaby has become its use since 1986 in the postcard of the program "Good night, kids!" (performed by Elena Kamburova):

As for the fate of this lullaby in his homeland, there are no discrepancies with the authorship of the text. It was created by the German poet and playwright Friedrich Wilhelm Gottter (1746–1797) for the play "Esther", staged in Leipzig in 1795. This play was an arrangement into the modern fret of the biblical book of Esfir, and the lullaby performed the choir of the maids of the queen (hence the prince in the original).

But with music, everything is much more interesting.

In 1825, the widow of Mozart Constantius sent this lullabies to the publisher of Mozart's works, noting: "The composition of the premium, on all signs of Mozartovskoye, direct, inventive." Three years later, the lullaby was printed in an appendix to the biography of Mozart, which Constance wrote with her second husband George von Nissen. From that moment on, the lullaby was included in the collected works of Mozart, and the German poet Matias Claudius (1740–1815) was indicated as the author of its text. In addition, work under the number K350 got into Köhel catalog (1862) - the most authoritative index of the works of the great Austrian composer, the numbering in which to this day is the main identifier of the work of the master.

However, the sister of Mozart Maria Anna (famous in the family as Nannerl) did not confirm the version of her brother's authorship, and Constance herself eventually doubted this. There were musicologists who claimed that the music of a lullaby was not at all like Mozartovskaya: it is too simple and unpretentious, even the most primitive songs of Mozart are more complicated. In addition, experts indicated on violations in Voicewhich the pedantic Mozart would never have allowed. A particularly painstaking work was done by the art historian Max Friedlanderwho, at the end of the 19th century, first discovered that the text of the lullaby was taken from the play of Gottter, and then brought to the best of convincing evidence that he wrote and published the music for it in 1796 Bernhard Flice, Berlin doctor and amateur composer. Little is known about fleece: he was born around 1770 in a family of Jewish businessmen, was baptized in 1798 and organized a charity concert in Mozart’s memory in Berlin.

It would seem that henceforth Mozart in all editions of the lullaby was to replace a fleece. However, it was not there. Several decades have passed, and Hitler came to power in Germany. The ideological soil sown by him turned out to be fertile for the exaltation of such musicologists as Herbert Gerigk. This figure, gradually reached the first roles in the musical policy of the Third Reich, is sadly known for the creation "Dictionary of Jews in music" - Publications designed to prevent the “accidental” performance of works of Jewish and partially Jewish composers. In addition, in the dictionary, through lies and deliberate falsification, the role of such large musical figures of “unworthy” origin, such as Mendelarson, Meyerber and Mahler, was depreciated. It was Gerigk in one of the numbers of his magazine “Music in the War” for 1944 that the version of the authorship of the fleece is nothing more than the “monstrous falsification”, who was treated by the “Jew Max Friedlander” to take the authorship of the Aryans.

Since then, years have passed, power has changed in Germany, and Bernhard Flice has become increasingly mentioned as the creator of the famous melody. In 1988 I discovered Another contender for authorship is a German composer Friedrich Johann Flyishmanwho died in 1798 at the age of 32. Flyishman arranged for the spiritual ensemble of the party from some operas of Mozart, and in 1796 he issued music for the lullaby of Gottter, the beginning of which almost coincides with the music of fleece. And if Flyishman can really be called a serious competitor to Fleas (there is even theorythat Frederick could convey notes of Constance, his countrywoman around the city of Mannham), then the version of the authorship of Mozart today supports less and fewer specialists. In particular, in the catalog of Köhel, a work under the number K350 these days usually either absentor indicated under The authorship of the fleece.

Thus, the author of the melody for the song “Sleep, my joy, fall asleep” is with a high degree of probability one of the two Mozart Modern composers: Bernhard Fleas or Friedrich Flyishman.