Of
Domenico Scarlatti's 555 keyboard sonatas, 151 are in minor keys, and with 32 sonatas, D minor is the most often chosen minor key.
The Art of Fugue by
Johann Sebastian Bach is in D minor.
Michael Haydn's only minor-key symphony,
No. 29, is in D minor. According to
Alfred Einstein, the history of tuning has led D minor to be associated with
counterpoint and
chromaticism (for example, the
chromatic fourth), and cites Bach's
Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, BWV 903, in D minor. Mozart's
Requiem is written primarily in D minor, as are the famous
Queen of the Night aria, "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen", and the overture and the final scene of
Don Giovanni. Of the two piano concertos that Mozart wrote in a minor key, one of them is in D minor:
Piano Concerto No. 20,
K. 466. Furthermore, his
String Quartet No. 13, K. 173, and
String Quartet No. 15, K. 421, and the overture of
Betulia liberata are also in D minor. The only chamber music compositions in D minor by
Ludwig van Beethoven are his
Piano Sonata No. 17 and the Largo of the
Ghost Trio Op. 70/1.
Franz Schubert's
String Quartet No. 14 (
Death and the Maiden) is in D minor. A number of
Gabriel Fauré's chamber music works are written in D minor, including the
Piano Trio Op. 120, the
First Piano Quintet Op. 89, and the
First Cello Sonata Op. 109.
Arnold Schoenberg's
Verklärte Nacht is in D minor, as is his
String Quartet No. 1. Since D minor is the key of Beethoven's
Symphony No. 9,
Anton Bruckner felt apprehensive about writing his own
Symphony No. 9 in the same key. As well as Bruckner's
First Mass and
Third Symphony, multiple other post-Beethoven symphonies are in D minor, including
Robert Schumann's
Symphony No. 4, the only
Symphony written by
César Franck,
Dvořák's
Seventh Symphony and
Symphony No. 3 by
Gustav Mahler.
Jean Sibelius often reserved the key of D minor for compositions he saw as being of a noble character; the
Violin Concerto, the
Sixth Symphony, and the string quartet
Voces intimae are each in the key. The tonality of D minor held special significance for Helene and
Alban Berg. D minor is particularly recurrent in the music of
Sergei Rachmaninoff, with pieces written in the key occupying close to one eighth of his total compositional output, including the
Third Piano Concerto; the
Piano Sonata No. 1; the
Symphony No. 1; the
Trio élégiaque No. 2; the
Études-Tableaux, Op. 33, No. 4; and
Op. 39, No. 8; the
Corelli Variations; and the symphonic poem
Prince Rostislav. Works in the
classical music era and later beginning in minor typically end in major, or at least on a major chord (such as a
picardy third), but there are a few notable examples of works in D minor ending in much sharper keys. Two symphonies that begin in D minor and end in
E major are
Havergal Brian's
Gothic Symphony and
Carl Nielsen's
Symphony No. 4 (The Inextinguishable).
Franz Liszt's
Dante Symphony opens in D minor and ends in
B major. Similar to a D minor symphony ending in
D major, as with Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, a D major symphony can have for its allegro first movement a slow introduction in D minor.
Robbins Landon wrote that "Tonic minor Adagio introductions, especially in the key of D minor, were very popular with English composers of the year 1794", and Joseph Haydn copied this procedure for the D major symphonies he wrote in London. Film composer
Hans Zimmer is one of the most prominent users of the key of D minor in modern times. Many of his well-known scores were written in the key; notable examples are
Gladiator,
The Dark Knight,
Pirates of the Caribbean and
The Da Vinci Code. His frequent use of the key has been noticed by reviewers such as Christian Clemmensen of
Filmtracks.com, who has called the trend "ridiculous stubbornness". ==Other notable compositions==