It is scored for solo piano (or harpsichord), two oboes, two bassoons (optional), two horns, and strings (consisting of violins, violas, cellos, and double basses).

Like all three of the early Vienna concertos that Mozart wrote, it is a modest work that can be performed with only string quartet and keyboard (i.e., "a quattro").

Although the three early Viennese concertos (Nos 11, 12 and 13) represent in some senses a formal regression compared to their immediate predecessors, especially No.

The second movement is notable for its quotation of a theme from the overture to La calamita de' cuori by Johann Christian Bach, Mozart's former mentor in London, who had just died on 1 January 1782.

[1] In view of the fact that at this point Mozart also wrote back to his father concerning Bach's death, saying of it 'what a loss to the musical world!