The key of E-flat major is often associated with bold, heroic music, in part because of
Beethoven's usage. His
Eroica Symphony,
Emperor Concerto and
Grand Sonata are all in this key. Beethoven's (hypothetical)
10th Symphony is also in E-flat. But even before Beethoven, Francesco Galeazzi identified E-flat major as "a heroic key, extremely majestic, grave and serious: in all these features it is superior to that of C."[1]
However, in the Classical period, E-flat major was not limited to solely bombastic brass music. "E-flat was the key
Haydn chose most often for [string] quartets, ten times in all, and in every other case he wrote the slow movement in the dominant, B-flat major."[2] Or "when composing church music and operatic music in E-flat major, [Joseph] Haydn often substituted
cors anglais for
oboes in this period", and also in
Symphony No. 22.[3]
E-flat major was the second-flattest key Mozart used in his music. For him, E-flat major was associated with Freemasonry; "E-flat evoked stateliness and an almost religious character."[4]
Edward Elgar wrote his Variation IX "Nimrod" from the Enigma Variations in E-flat major. Its strong, yet vulnerable character has led the piece to become a staple at funerals, especially in Great Britain.
Shostakovich used the E-flat major scale to sarcastically evoke military glory in his
Symphony No. 9.[5]
^Francesco Galeazzi, Elementi teorico-practici di musica (1796) as translated to English in
Rita Steblin, A History of Key Characteristics in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries. University of Rochester Press (1996): 111
^Paul Griffiths, The String Quartet. New York: Thames & Hudson (1983): 29
^David Wyn Jones, "The Symphonies of Haydn" in A Guide to the Symphony, ed.
Robert Layton. Oxford: Oxford University Press
^Robert Harris, What to Listen for in Mozart. Simon & Schuster (2002): 174