The work is in standard four movement form and scored for two flutes, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings.
The musicologist Daniel Heartz has described the opening bars as a direct quotation from Così fan tutte, an opera by Haydn's close friend Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
The quotation is of a solo oboe passage (in melody and harmony) marking the climax of the opera's plot, the moment Fiordiligi yields to Ferrando.
In the variation following the minore episode, Haydn used the unusual sul ponticello marking instructing the violins to play with the bow near the bridge creating a "glassy" or "metallic" sound.
[3] For the final eight bars of the Trio of the minuet, Haydn instructs the concertmaster ("Salomon Solo" in the score) to play an octave above the rest of the first violins.