The tale of how the symphony was composed was told by Haydn in old age to his biographers Albert Christoph Dies and Georg August Griesinger.

[2] At that time, Haydn's patron Nikolaus I, Prince Esterházy was resident, together with all his musicians and retinue, at his favorite summer palace at Eszterháza in rural Hungary.

[5] The piece is written for two oboes, bassoon, two horns (in A, F♯ and E), and strings (violins in two sections (four in the final Adagio), violas, cellos and double basses).

The movement can be explained structurally in terms of sonata form, but it departs from the standard model in a number of ways (just before the recapitulation, for example, new material is introduced, which might have been used as the second subject in the exposition in a more conventional work).

The mood gradually becomes more somber and meditative with an alternation between major and minor modes, resembling many similar passages in the later work of Schubert.

There follows a series of dissonant suspensions carried across the bar line, which are extended to extraordinary lengths by Haydn when the same material appears in the recapitulation.

The following minuet is in the key of F♯ major; its main peculiarity is that the final cadence of each section is made very weak (falling on the third beat), creating a sense of incompleteness.

The last movement begins as a characteristic Haydn finale in fast tempo and cut time, written in sonata form in the home key of F♯ minor.