Mozart’s lieder reveal him to be a dramatist in miniature. Even if he failed to cultivate this genre systematically he nevertheless directed his creative powers toward the lied at all stages of his career. His first effort (now lost) was written at the age of six or seven and he took up the genre again and again, at irregular intervals, down to the final year of his life. None the less, Mozart usually chose to write a lied only when there was a special occasion for doing so. Even the preface to the firt complete edition of his lieder, published in 1799 by Breitkopf & Härtel, refers to them as “occasional pieces”, as does the Leipzig Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung in the same year. Mozart himself doubtless regarded these ingenious little works as "pieces for friends", and was not disposed to think of them as particularly significant.
