A Little Nightmare Music and released on CD by Vanguard Records in 1983. The album also includes two other works by P. D. Q. Bach: an octet (Octoot for wind instruments) and a parody of Handel's "Water Music" and "Music for the Royal Fireworks", Royal Firewater Musick. A recording of the original cast of the opera was made. Since the opera is short, the recording also includes two other works by P.D.Q. Bach, "Octoot" for wind instruments, S. 8 and "Royal Firewater Musick", for bottles and orchestra (original version), S. 1/5. The track listing is as follows: A Little Nightmare Music Octoot Royal Firewater
Opera in German music, "Singspiele" were no match for contemporary opera serias in artistic sophistication. A milestone of German opera was Anton Schweitzer's "Alceste", with a libretto by Wieland, premiered in 1773 in Weimar. At the end of the 18th century a composer who would change all this would emerge: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. As music moved into the Classical era in the late 18th century, most German-born composers still avoided writing opera in their own language. The great figure of the early Classical period was Christoph Willibald von Gluck but his pioneering reforms were directed at Italian and French opera, not the German