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Other Nursery Sheets
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star is one of the most popular English nursery rhymes. It combines the tune of the 1761 French melody "Ah ! vous dirai-je, Maman" with an English poem, "The Star", by Jane Taylor. more...
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The poem, which is in couplet form, was first published in 1806 in Rhymes for the Nursery, a collection of poems by Taylor and her sister Ann.
The English lyrics are normally as follows:
- Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
- How I wonder what you are!
- Up above the world so high,
- Like a diamond in the sky.
- Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
- How I wonder what you are!
The repetition of the first two lines at the end is not in the original poem, but it allows the words to fit the melody.
Misconceptions
A common misconception, reinforced by its appearance as a "correct answer" in the original edition of Trivial Pursuit, is that the music was written by Mozart. Mozart did not compose the original French melody, but he did write 12 variations on it; these variations are listed as K. 265 (later K. 300e - see below) in the Köchel-Verzeichnis.
Another misconception appears to be that all versions of the song could be qualified as nursery rhymes. On the contrary, the original French version of the text was not intended for children's ears, see below.
Melody
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in ABC notation, C major:
- CCGGAAG
- FFEEDDC
- GGFFEED
- GGFFEED
- CCGGAAG
- FFEEDDC
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in sol-fa notation (d r m f s l t d = do re me fa so la ti do)
- d d s s l l s
- f f m m r r d
- s s f f m m r
- s s f f m m r
- d d s s l l s
- f f m m r r d
Appearances of the melody
Many songs in various languages have been based on the French original, "Ah ! vous dirai-je, Maman". In English, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" shares its melody with the "Alphabet song" from 1834, and "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep". The German Christmas carol "Morgen kommt der Weihnachtsmann" with words by Hoffmann von Fallersleben also uses the melody, as does the Hungarian Christmas carol "Hull a pelyhes fehér hó" (the first two lines repeated with different lyrics) and the Dutch "Altijd is Kortjakje ziek".
Several famous classical compositions have been inspired by the tune:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Theme and Variations (K265);
Camille Saint-Saëns, Carnival of the Animals, 12th movement (Fossiles) quotes the tune;
Ernő Dohnányi, Variations on a Nursery Tune;
John Corigliano, The Mannheim Rocket;
Read more at Wikipedia.org
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