There are only two known symphonies in the 18th century written in this key. One of them is by
Joseph Martin Kraus, who appears to have found the key difficult since he later rewrote it in
C minor. In the following two centuries, C-sharp minor symphonies remained rare. Notable examples are the second movement Adagio of
Anton Bruckner's
Symphony No. 7, the first movement of
Gustav Mahler's
Symphony No. 5 and
Prokofiev's
Symphony No. 7. This key occurs more often in piano literature from the 18th century onwards.
Domenico Scarlatti wrote just two keyboard sonatas in C-sharp minor, K. 246 and K. 247. After
Beethoven's
Piano Sonata No. 14 (
Moonlight Sonata), the key became more frequent in the piano repertoire. Beethoven himself used this key again in the outer movements of his
String Quartet No. 14 (Op. 131, 1826). Even so,
Johannes Brahms still felt the need to rewrite his C-sharp minor piano quartet in C minor, which was published as
Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, Op. 60. The last intermezzo from his
Three Intermezzi for piano, Op. 117 is in C-sharp minor.
Alkan composed the second movement (Adagio) for
Concerto for Solo Piano in C-sharp minor.
Frédéric Chopin often wrote in this key: examples include the
Fantaisie-Impromptu,
Études Op. 10, No. 4 and
Op. 25, No. 7,
Scherzo No. 3 (Op. 39),
Waltz Op. 64, No. 2,
Polonaise Op. 26 No. 1, the
Prelude opus 45 and Nocturnes
No. 7 (Op. 27, No. 1) and
No. 20 (Lento con gran espressione). More examples of works in C-sharp minor include
Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp minor (Op. 3, No. 2),
Scriabin's Étude in C-sharp minor, Op. 2, No. 1,
Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, and
Tchaikovsky's Piano Sonata in C-sharp minor. Piano concertos written in C-sharp minor include
Poulenc's
Piano Concerto in C-sharp minor, FP 146 (1949),
Erich Wolfgang Korngold's
Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, Op. 17,
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's
Piano Concerto, and others by
Ferdinand Ries,
Xaver Scharwenka,
Amy Beach,
Miriam Hyde and
Issay Dobrowen.
Franz Berwald and
Dimitri Shostakovich wrote violin concertos in C-sharp minor.
Jules Van Nuffel wrote his psalm setting for choir and organ in C-sharp minor. C-sharp minor is often used as the parallel minor of D-flat major, especially since D-flat major's real parallel minor, D-flat minor, would have eight flats including one double-flat. For example, in his
Prelude No. 15 in D-flat major ("Raindrop"),
Frédéric Chopin switches from D-flat major to C-sharp minor for the middle section in the parallel minor, while in his
Fantaisie-Impromptu and
Scherzo No. 3, primarily in C-sharp minor, he switches to D-flat major for the middle section for the opposite reason.
Claude Debussy likewise switches from D-flat major to C-sharp minor in the significant section in his famous "
Clair de lune" for a few measures.
Antonín Dvořák's
New World Symphony also switches to C-sharp minor for a while for the significant section in the
slow movement.