The work was written during Mozart's stay in Munich from December 1774 to March 1775 for the production of La finta giardiniera.

The second subject, a supple melodic line, unaccompanied in its opening bar, incorporates a descending chain of first inversions, a favourite harmonic formula of the baroque and classical periods.

(There are analogous passages in the subsidiary themes in Gluck's overture Iphigénie en Tauride and the first movements of J. S. Bach's Italian Concerto).

The opening four measures form a kind of dialogue (like the theme of the first movement of the preceding G Major Sonata), and Mozart subjects them to felicitous counter-statement, heightened by his meticulous dynamic markings.

The superficial impression of a diffuse form does not stand up to a closer inspection: it would not be at all easy to omit one of the twelve variations, or to add an extra one.