The key of E major is often associated with bold, heroic music, in part because of
Ludwig van 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. But even before Beethoven, identified E major as "a heroic key, extremely majestic, grave and serious: in all these features it is superior to that of C."
Jean-Benjamin de La Borde in 1780 ascribed to E major the quality of being "grave and very somber". During the
Baroque era,
Marc-Antoine Charpentier in his
Règles de composition (circa 1682) thought of this key as "cruel and hard".
Johann Mattheson in the work
Das neu-eröffnete Orchestre (1713) stated that E major is "pathetic; concerned with serious and plaintive things; bitterly hostile to all lasciviousness". Three of
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's completed
Horn Concertos and
Joseph Haydn's
Trumpet Concerto are in E major and so is
Anton Bruckner's
Fourth Symphony with its prominent horn theme in the first movement. Another notable heroic piece in the key of E major is
Richard Strauss's
Ein Heldenleben. The heroic theme from the Jupiter movement of
Gustav Holst's
The Planets is in E major. Mahler's vast and heroic
Eighth Symphony is in E and his
Second Symphony also ends in this key. However, in the Classical period, E 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." Or "when composing church music and operatic music in E major, [Joseph] Haydn often substituted
cors anglais for
oboes in this period", and also in
Symphony No. 22. E major was the second-flattest key Mozart used in his music. For him, E major was associated with Freemasonry; "E-flat evoked stateliness and an almost religious character."
Edward Elgar wrote his Variation IX "Nimrod" from the
Enigma Variations in E major. Its strong, yet vulnerable character has led the piece to become a staple at funerals, especially in Great Britain. Shostakovich used the E major scale to sarcastically evoke military glory in his
Symphony No. 9. ==Well-known compositions in this key==