[1] Nearly all professional bassoonists will perform the piece at some stage in their career, and it is probably the most commonly requested piece in orchestral auditions – it is usually requested that the player perform excerpts from the concerto's first two movements in every audition.

Although the autograph score is lost, the exact date of its completion is known: 4 June 1774.

[3] Although it is believed that it was commissioned by an aristocratic amateur bassoon player Thaddäus Freiherr von Dürnitz, who owned seventy-four works by Mozart, this is a claim that is supported by little evidence.

[better source needed] The concerto is scored for a solo bassoon and an orchestra consisting of 2 oboes, 2 horns in Bb (sometimes transcribed for F), violin I/II, viola, and cello and double bass doubling the bass line.

The second movement is a slow and lyrical sonata without development that contains a theme which was later featured in the Countess's aria "Porgi, Amor" at the beginning of the second act of Mozart's opera Le nozze di Figaro.