Ah, vous dirai-je Maman KV 265

Descriptif : The anonymous theme Ah, vous dirai-je Maman was known in Paris at least from 1761, and it became one of the most popular melodies for sets of variations after 1770.'
'
Mozart apparently heard it in Paris and produced his variations on it in the summer of 1780 at the earliest or, more probably, in 1781–2 in Vienna,presumably with an eye to his teaching activities.'
'
Our edition is based on two autograph fragments from the holding of the German Mozart Society in Augsburg and the Augsburg Mozart Association. All that is missing are variations 8 and 9 and the final five bars of variation 12. '
'
Unfortunately, the only known copy of the printed edition, published by Torricella in 1785 (presumably from the autograph manuscript), is incomplete.'
'
In compensation, a good copyist’s manuscript obviously prepared from the Torricella print has survived in Kromìøíz¡ Castle in the Czech Republic.'
'
We have drawn on this manuscript for those sections missing in the two other sources. – The many extra staccato marks added to variations 8 and 9 in modern editions are not to be found in the earlier sources and first occur in the Simrock print of 1803. But even where there are no staccato marks a non-legato attack is called for.