Symphony no. 29 in A major, K. 201

Dated 6 April 1774, the last of the symphonies Mozart wrote in Salzburg before turning for several years to serenades, concertos and theatre music. It is scored modestly — oboes, horns and strings — but treated with a contrapuntal seriousness the earlier Salzburg symphonies avoid: the octave-drop theme of the first movement is developed rather than merely repeated, the minuet's dotted rhythms are sharply cut, and the finale runs in a fast six-eight that ends in a unison flourish instead of a cadence formula. The scale is chamber-like; the ambition is not. Mozart kept a high opinion of it: years later, settled in Vienna, he asked his father to send the score from Salzburg so that the symphony could be played at his concerts there.