Mozart's Symphony No. 34 in C major, K. 338, is one of the composer's more assured and consistent works from his last years in Salzburg. Arguably the most original of Mozart's symphonies to that point, it looks forward to his later, more mature efforts in the genre.

One unusual characteristic of the Allegro vivace first movement is that there is no real melody for nearly 40 measures. Instead, Mozart bombards the listener with rising arpeggios and repeated notes in a march-like rhythm. As in K. 319 and the earlier Symphony No. 31 in D major, K. 297, the movement lacks the customary repeat of the exposition, instead moving directly into the development. The development does not concern itself with themes from the exposition, but presents new material in the striking key of A flat major, creating a powerful, intense harmonic relationship with the dominant just before the recapitulation. The recapitulation is presented as a "mirror image" of the exposition, beginning with the resolution of the secondary material and closing with the main theme.

Mozart added the bassoon part of the second movement, Andante di molto, in 1786; it had originally been written for strings only. This movement is characterized throughout by a sense of repose, initiated by the key of F major and its relaxed relationship to the C major of the Allegro. Mozart's quest for symmetry is clear in the contrast between the melodic shapes of the first theme, a rising, turning idea with minute pauses, and the second, a continuous, generally descending melody. A brief development passage, really just a transition, connects the exposition to the recapitulation.

The third movement, a Minuet and Trio in C major, presents something of a problem. Mozart had previously added a minuet to the Symphony No. 33 in B flat major, K. 319 (1779) for a performance at the Vienna Auergarten in 1782. Noted Mozart scholar Alfred Einstein believes that the composer did the same for K. 338, and that a stray Minuet in C major, K. 409 dating from May 1782 was meant to be inserted between the symphony's slow movement and finale. Einstein points to the fact that the autograph of the symphony contains the first few measures of a minuet in C major, later crossed out. However, this minuet was to be in second position and is nothing like K. 409; furthermore, K. 409 includes flutes, which are not present in the other movements of the symphony. Einstein suggests, without concrete evidence, that Mozart added flutes to the remaining movements, but neither flutes nor a minuet appear in the revised orchestral parts Mozart sent to Prince Fürstenberg in Donaueschingen in the summer of 1786. The controversial Minuet has a sturdy, assertive character that seems a little out of place in this work. After the first section closes on the dominant, the second half follows a traditional path and is rounded by a full return of the earlier material. A solo oboe takes the lead in the first part of the Trio, while the flutes are prominent in the second.

The finale is permeated by the language of Italian opera buffa in the context of a symphonic argument. As in the first movement, the main thematic material is unmelodic, unfolding as a series of ideas rather than real tunes, in the tonic and dominant. The movement's energy, fueled by its propulsive 6/8 meter, continues unabated from the downbeat to the end.

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