Bona nox

Bona nox! bist a rechta Ox, K. 561, is a canon in A major for four voices a cappella by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; Mozart entered this work into his personal catalogue on 1788 as part of a set of ten canons.

Music

The canon is written in the time signature of cut common time and in the key signature of A major. The theme is 16 bars long; each of the four voices enters after four bars.

Text

The original lyrics are probably by Mozart himself; they include the words for "good night" in five different languages. The phrase "gute Nacht, gute Nacht, / scheiß ins Bett daß' kracht", found in the fourth-to-last and third-to-last lines, closely resembles a similar expression found in a postscript to one of Wolfgang's letters by his mother, written to his father; also in Mozart's letter from to his sister.

Reception

The completely expurgated version found widespread distribution in traditional German Hausmusik.