I. Allegro moderato
II. Andante
III. Menuetto: Allegretto
IV. Allegro con spirito

Composed in 1774 when Mozart was 18 years old, this work in A major is both one of his first “adult” compositions and perhaps the most outstanding of the “Salzburg” symphonies that he wrote between 1771 and 1774. The symphony as a genre had only recently evolved from the sinfonia, the introduction to an Italian opera, and it was right around 1770 when it took on its four-movement format of serious musical expression at the hands of composers from southern Germany and Vienna. In July 1773, Mozart was in Vienna seeking a position with the court, and even though his hopes came to naught, this closer acquaintanceship with the Viennese style had a great impact on his musical development. The pieces he composed during this stay in the Imperial City included six string quartets, and the effect of writing chamber music can immediately be felt in the remarkable main theme played by the strings in the opening movement. In the serenade-like slow movement, the string players only remove their mutes in the suddenly scintillating final bars. It is not difficult to perceive the subtle irony of the “postlude” that is played several times by the wind section in the intentionally old-fashioned-sounding Baroque-style minuet, and this closing idea – in the guise of an incomplete-seeming scale progression – is also taken up in the finale.