In the Baroque period, D major was seen as "the key of glory"; so many trumpet pieces were in D major. Examples include concertos by Fasch, Gross, Molter (No. 2), Leopold Mozart, Telemann (No. 2), and Giuseppe Torelli; sonatas by Corelli, Franceschini, Purcell, Torelli; and "The Trumpet Shall Sound" and the "Hallelujah" chorus from Handel's "Messiah".
After the valve trumpet was invented, composers began to write for trumpet in keys with more flats, so Haydn wrote his famous trumpet concerto in the key of E-flat major.
23 of Haydn's 104 symphonies are in D major, making it the most often used main key of his symphonies. A great number of Mozart's unnumbered symphonies are in D major, namely K. 66c, 81/73, 97/73m, 95/73n, 120/111a and 161/163/141a. The symphony came from the overture, and "D major was by far the most common key for overtures in the second half of the eighteenth century."
Scriabin saw D major as golden in color and when he talked to Rimsky-Korsakov, he gave an example from one of Rimsky-Korsakov's own operas where a character sang in D major about gold.
B minor
B minor is a minor scale based on B. The harmonic minor raises the A to A. Its key signature has two sharps.
Its relative major is D major, and its parallel major is B major.
In Baroque times, people thought that B minor was the key of passive suffering. Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart (1739-1791) said that it was a key that was complaining gently and quietly, something that matches Bach's use of the key in the St. John's Passion. By Beethoven's time, B minor had changed in people's minds: Francesco Galeazzi wrote that B minor was not suitable for music in good taste, and Beethoven labelled a B minor melodic idea in one of his sketchbooks as a "black key".
The chord was famously used as the first chord in Pink Floyd's 1979 hit "Comfortably Numb". The second movement of Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, one of the most famous compositions for the classical guitar, is in B minor.
It is a common key used in rock, folk, country and other guitarist-based styles because a guitar is naturally tuned so that all the open strings are notes in B minor.
C minor
C minor is a minor scale based on C. The harmonic minor raises the B to B. Its key signature has three flats. When written in jazz notation, its short form is Cm.
Its relative major is E-flat major, and its parallel major is C major.
In the Baroque period, music in C minor was usually written with a two-flat key signature. When this music is printed today, sometimes it is still printed in the same way.
C minor has had the meaning of heroic struggle from Beethoven's time and the composer wrote many of his most emotional, dramatic works in this key. This has also been done by many others, following Beethoven's style.
These are just a few of the well-known works to be written in C minor:
A major
A major (or the key of A) is a major scale with a base note of A. Its key signature has three sharps.
Its relative minor is F-sharp minor. The key of A-major is the only key where a Neapolitan sixth chord on formula_1 needs both a flat and a natural accidental.
There are not as many symphonies in A major as in D major or G major, but more than other sharp keys. Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, Bruckner's Symphony No. 6 and Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4 are almost all the symphonies in this key in the Romantic era. Mozart's Clarinet Concerto and Clarinet Quintet are both in A major. Mozart used clarinets in A major often.
In chamber music, A major is used a lot. Johannes Brahms, César Franck, and Gabriel Fauré wrote violin sonatas in A major. Peter Cropper said that A major "is the fullest sounding key for the violin.", when he was talking about Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata.
According to Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart, A major is a key that is good for "declarations of innocent love, ... hope of seeing one's beloved again when parting; youthful cheerfulness and trust in God."
When music for orchestra is in A major, the timpani are normally set to A and E a fifth apart. In most other keys, they are set a fourth apart.
F-sharp minor
F-sharp minor is a minor scale based on F sharp. Its key signature has three sharps.
Its relative major is A major.
Many people think it is a melancholy and key.
Harry Farjeon says that F sharp minor is "light red", and that it is the key Mendelssohn uses when he is being passionate.
Johann Mattheson wrote that 'F minor, although it leads to great distress, nevertheless is more and love-sick than lethal. Moreover, it has something abandoned, singular, and about it.'
Very few symphonies are written in this key. Haydn's "Farewell Symphony" is one famous example. George Frederick Bristow and Dora Pejačević also wrote symphonies in this key.
Many piano pieces have been written in F-sharp minor.
Mozart's only composition in this key is the second movement to his Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major. 2 of Chopin's 52 mazurkas, and 1 of his nocturnes are in this key, though he seems to have liked the related key C-sharp minor better. Scriabin's Piano Sonata No. 3 is also in this key, and the 3rd movement of Beethoven's "Hammerklavier" Piano Sonata is too.
Both Reger's and Tippett's second string quartets are in this key, and so is Shostakovich's seventh string quartet.
A-flat major
A major or A-flat major is a major scale that starts on A-flat.
Its relative minor is F minor and its parallel minor is A-flat minor.
This is a very peaceful key. It was used often by Franz Schubert. Twenty-four of Frédéric Chopin's piano pieces are in A-flat major, more than any other key.
Charles-Marie Widor considered A-flat major to be the second best key for flute music.
Beethoven chose A-flat major as the key of the slow movement for most of his C minor works. This was also followed by Antonín Dvořák in his only C minor symphony and Anton Bruckner in his first two C minor symphonies.
Since A-flat major was not often chosen as the main key for orchestral music of the 18th century, passages or movements in the key often kept the timpani tuned the same way as they were in the movement before it. For example, Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C minor has the timpani set to C and G for the first movement. With hand-tuned timpani, there is no time to retune the timpani to A flat and E flat for the slow second movement in A flat. In Bruckner's Symphony No. 1 in C minor, however, the timpani are retuned between the first movement in C minor and the following in A-flat major.
Edward Elgar's Symphony No. 1 in A-flat major is probably the best-known symphony in that key. Arnold Bax's last symphony is also in the same key. A-flat major is the major key with the most flats that Domenico Scarlatti used in his keyboard sonatas, though he used it only twice– in K. 127 and K. 130. Felix Mendelssohn and John Field each wrote one piano concerto in A-flat.
F minor
F minor is a minor scale based on F. The harmonic minor raises the E to E. Its key signature has four flats.
Its relative major is A-flat major, and its parallel major is F major.
F minor is a key that people often link with passion. Some famous pieces in the key of F minor are Beethoven's "Appassionata Sonata", Haydn's Symphony No. 49 in F minor, "La Passione", and Vivaldi's The Four Seasons.
In the Baroque period, music in F minor was usually written with a three-flat key signature. Some modern printings of such music keeps it written that way.
The enharmonic equivalent of F minor is E-sharp minor. It is a minor scale based on the musical note E♯. Its key signature has six sharps and one double sharp.
E major
E major is a major scale with a base note of E. Its key signature has four sharps. Its relative minor is C-sharp minor.