Average performances of the whole
string quartet vary in length from 26 to 33 minutes. As with all later Mozart quartets, this quartet has four
movements: {{ordered list|type=I The first movement, in G major, contrasts fairly diatonic passages with chromatic runs. According to (Williams, 1997) "it must come as something of a surprise to anyone examining this quartet just how much chromaticism there is in it." In contrast to the standard quartet form, which places the minuet as the third movement, this quartet has the minuet as its second movement (another example of this ordering is the
String Quartet No. 17). It is a long minuet, written in the tonic key of G major, with its
chromatic fourths set apart by note-to-note dynamics changes. Its trio is in
G minor and has a suitably darker and more unsettled mood. The minuet is followed by a slow movement in the subdominant
C major, whose theme explores remote key areas. The
fugal theme of four whole notes in the finale points ahead to the finale of Mozart's
"Jupiter" Symphony of 1788, a movement which also begins with four whole notes that are used in a fugal fashion in the
coda, and it also points back to
Michael Haydn's
Symphony No. 23 in which the finale is also a fugato based on a theme of four whole notes, of which Mozart copied out the first few bars and which was mistakenly entered into Köchel's original catalogue as K. 291. Mozart uses an identical 5-note motif in the opening bar of his
second duo for violin and viola, K. 424, also associated with Michael Haydn. == Notes ==