The Mozarts' tour to Vienna in 1767-1768 proved crucial to young W.A. Mozart's development as a composer. During the "Grand Tour" on which Leopold Mozart took his gifted children, the remarkably precocious Wolfgang, famous for his incredible ears as well as his playing and composing, absorbed the formal traits and melodic characters of the music heard along the way and incorporated them into his own style. Upon arriving in Vienna, Mozart adapted his symphonic style to suit the tastes of the Viennese public, a change seen most apparently in his adoption of four-movement symphonic structures (rather than the three-movement structure seen in his earlier symphonies). The Symphony in F major (K. 43) (1767) was the first to exhibit this trait, followed by the Symphony in D major (K45) (early 1768). The Symphony in D major (K. 48) incorporates Viennese tastes even more extensively; in addition to containing four movements, its first movement features the first thorough treatment of the sonata-allegro form to be found in Mozart's symphonic catalogue. The opening movement, cast somewhat unusually in a triple meter, features a melodically plain but dynamically dramatic opening theme, with its large leaps and sudden shifts between forte and piano, contrasted with a more contoured and rhythmically varied secondary theme. The extensive development section stands as a milestone in the evolution of Mozart's approach to form, with a recapitulation rounding out the structure. As is often the custom, the woodwinds, brass, and tympani, which had added a distinctive and energetic color to the opening Allegro, rest during the subsequent Andante second movement. Here the strings convey a plaintive lyricism through careful articulations of their dotted neighbor-note motives and descending sequences of ascending notes. A refined Minuet movement leads to the dance-like finale, with its coy grace notes and nimble 12/8 meter. Although the K. 48 symphony clearly speaks to a Viennese audience, there is some mystery with regards to what specific audience was meant to hear it. No records of a commission, accounts of a performance, or correspondence mentioning the work have been found and it seems strange that Mozart would write such an impressive work at the end of 1768, just before leaving Vienna for Salzburg. Scholar Neal Zaslaw suspected that the work, with its festive trumpets and tympani, was actually composed for a triumphant (but undocumented) farewell concert before leaving Vienna.

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