I. Allegro II. Adagio III. Rondo. Allegro

1775 was not one of Mozart's more conspicuously happy years. He saw the hopes he had cherished for several months for a position in Münich, dashed, and Salzburg's musical and general cultural provincialism, as well as the small mindedness of the Bishop, suffocated him. Even so, compositions poured from his pen, and he was even able to satisfy commissions for operas. He also found time to develop the violin concerto into an important genre. In 1775, he composed five concertos, and his growing confidence and mastery of the form can be followed clearly.
The G major concerto begins with a theme that he borrowed from an aria ritornello from his opera Il ré pastore, which he wrote that spring. The concerto's style is a good deal more determined, individual and self confident than its predessors. The theme of the opening Allegro cannot be described as a melody in the traditional sense, rather it is trill, or an extended ornament raised to the rank of theme. The melody of the Adagio, by contrast, is an expressive song, indeed serenade music. We can hear echoes of J. Chr Bach's galante style. The closing rondo (Allegro) takes the French potpourri structure as its model. The varied ground-plan employing a multiplicity of tempos in the movement, the themes and the various kinds of stylised dances, among them obviously folk inspired melodies – for example a musette – all contribute to making this movement one of Mozart's earliest adult masterpieces.