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] Three of Mozart's completed Horn Concertos and Joseph Haydn's Trumpet Concerto are in E-flat 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-flat major is Richard Strauss's A Hero's Life.

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.

Shostakovich used the E-flat major scale to sarcastically evoke military glory in his Symphony No.