Les petits riens

Les petits riens (French for "The Little Nothings") is a ballet in one act and three tableaux by Jean-Georges Noverre, with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and other unknown composers, possibly including François-Joseph Gossec, first performed at the Academie Royale de Music in Paris on 11 June 1778.

While Mozart was staying in Paris, Noverre asked him to compose a new score for a ballet that he had created in Vienna in 1767. The ballet was to be danced as an interlude in the new opera Le finte gemelle by Niccolò Piccinni.[1] The opera was a flop and closed after four performances. Although the ballet music was well-received,[2] Mozart was not credited with it, and he was at the time little-known in Paris.

The score, catalogued as K. 299b, was thought lost, but it was rediscovered in the Paris Opera's archives in the late 19th century[1] and has since entered both the ballet and symphonic repertoire.