Although born in Italy Cherubini had been living in France since 1784, and had earned world fame through a series of operas composed for the Paris stage.
In the first decade of the nineteenth century the vogue for his dramatic works began to wane, and he turned increasingly to sacred music.
Indeed, after the stately opening gestures of its Larghetto introduction, an undercurrent of unease becomes apparent, conveyed by chromatic twists in the bass, and by an early turn from G into E-flat, which mixes G-minor vocabulary into the major-mode context.
In the reprise, Cherubini discards the exposition's sidestepping modulation as a twice-told tale, and, moreover, replaces the initial second-subject theme with the quoted development variant.
A presto coda begins with what is in effect an aristocratic forebear of a Rossini-crescendo, building from pianissimo to fortissimo, and bold reminders of G minor punctuate before the overture ends in triumph.