Mozart's first symphonies were composed during the extensive tour of Europe undertaken between June 1763 and November 1766. Leopold Mozart, the composer's father, had planned the journey in order to show off his prodigiously gifted children, Wolfgang and his sister Marianne (Nannerl) at the major European courts. Having traveled through Germany to Belgium and France, the family arrived in London in April 1764, appearing at the court of George III on the 27th. The extraordinary impression left by the children's keyboard prowess at the many concerts they gave has been well-documented, but of more lasting importance was Mozart's meeting with Johann Christian Bach, the youngest son of J. S. Bach. Bach, not yet thirty himself, had settled in London two years earlier and, in conjunction with his compatriot Carl Friedrich Abel, had launched a highly successful public concert series in which the symphonies and concertos of the two composers formed a mainstay of the repertoire. Bach seems to have taken the young Wolfgang under his wing (although there is no evidence to support the suggestion that he gave Mozart lessons), and the child's first attempts at composing symphonies (and later piano concertos) are clearly influenced by those of Bach and Abel. Indeed, one symphony for long attributed to Mozart, No.3 in E flat, K. 18 is now known to have been composed by Abel. All these works conform to the Italian three-movement pattern and are virtually indistinguishable from the Italian opera overture of the period, a number of Bach's operatic overtures having indeed been subsequently published as symphonies. Mozart's Symphony "No. 4" in D, in fact the second of his authenticated symphonies, was probably composed during the London visit, although Mozart expert Neal Zaslaw believes it was not composed until the Mozarts reached The Hague, the family's next port of call after they left London in August 1765. Scored for two horns, two oboes and strings (the standard symphonic scoring of the period), the three movements are an Allegro that opens with a fanfare-like motif, an Andante in G major whose drone invokes pastoral connotations, and a two-part finale (Presto) in jig style.

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