This is one of several short symphonies the teenaged Mozart wrote during a tour of Italy; it seems to have come into being in Rome in April 1770 (although it's also possible that Mozart wrote it slightly later, while in Milan and Bologna). Unlike some of the other symphonies Mozart was writing at the time, this one dispenses with the festive noise of trumpets and drums, reducing the ensemble to strings plus pairs of oboes and horns, but like its fellows it is tailored to the opera buffa tastes of Mozart's Italian audiences.

The opening Allegro is particularly vigorous in its initial material, with the violins sometimes producing uninhibited, chirping sounds. What amounts to the two thematic subjects are really just successions of small ideas like this, linked more through spirit than melody; the only way to tell Mozart has launched a second subject is that he shifts to the dominant.

The Andante, in A major, is in a more regular sonata form, with the violins and oboes presenting the first melody in parallel thirds, calling to mind Gluck's Dance of the Blessed Spirits without trying to achieve Gluck's serenity. The second group of thematic ideas features greater interplay between the winds and strings, the latter indulging in a few short passages of understated pizzicato. The development section is merely a four-bar transition before a repeat of the themes that have already been presented. The finale of the symphony's three movements is another Allegro, this one resembling a jig full of chattering triplets and motivated by a scampering up-and-down, arpeggiated figure.

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