Symphony No. 41 (Mozart) written only a few weeks before Mozart's, also has a fugato in the finale, the theme of which begins with two whole notes. Sherman has pointed out other similarities between the two almost perfectly contemporaneous works. The four-note motif is also the main theme of the contrapuntal finale of Michael's elder brother Joseph's Symphony No. 13 in D major (1764). According to Franz Mozart, Wolfgang's younger son, the symphony was given the name "Jupiter" by Johann Peter Salomon, who had settled in London in around 1781. The name has also been attributed to Johann Baptist Cramer, an English music publisher.
Symphony No. 41 (Mozart) possessed to the same degree with himself, of concealing that science, and making it the vehicle for music as pleasing as it is learned. Nowhere has he achieved more." Of the piece as a whole, he wrote that "It is the greatest orchestral work of the world which preceded the French Revolution." The four-note theme is a common plainchant motif which can be traced back at least as far as Josquin des Prez's "Missa Pange lingua" from the 16th century. It was very popular with Mozart. It makes a brief appearance as early as his Symphony No. 1 in 1764.