¹ Macdonald, Hugh, ‘[G-Flat Major]’, 19th-Century Music, 11.3 (1988), pp. 221–37, doi:10.2307/746321 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² Some of the Beethoven works were found in Ellison’s, Paul The Key to Beethoven: Connecting Tonality and Meaning in his Music (Pendragon Press, 2014), pp. 145–47Google Scholar; ombra scenes were found in Clive McClelland, Ombra: Supernatural Music in the Eighteenth Century (Lexington Books, 2012); others were found in Paul Mies, Der Charakter der Tonarten (Staufen-Verlag, 1948), Hermann Stephani’s book of the same title (Bosse, 1923), and Macdonald’s writings. I am indebted to James Porter’s Beyond Fingal’s Cave: Ossian in the Musical Imagination (University of Rochester Press, 2019) for hints to many additional works.

³ See Wilson, John David, ‘Of Hunting, Horns, and Heroes: A Brief History of E-Flat Major before the Eroica ’, Journal of Musicological Research, 32 (2013), pp. 163–82, doi:10.1080/01411896.2013.792037 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also see Ellison, The Key to Beethoven.

⁴ Steblin, Rita, A History of Key Characteristics in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries, 2nd edn (University of Rochester Press, 2002)Google Scholar.

⁵ Ibid., p. 96.

⁶ Galeazzi, Francesco, Elementi teorico-pratici di musica, 2 vols (M. Puccinelli, 1796), ii, p. 294 Google Scholar, trans. and cited in Steblin, A History of Key Characteristics, p. 105. Steblin’s translations are used when available to maintain consistency of word choice. Where she does not also include the original language, it is included here. Other translations are mine unless otherwise noted.

⁷ Ibid., p. 116. A♭ major may have been infrequent because the ‘wolf’ fifth in mean-tone temperaments was often placed between A♭ and E♭.

⁸ Ibid., p. 117.

⁹ Ibid., pp. 99 and 103. See also Grétry, André-Ernest-Modeste, Mémoires, ou Essais sur la musique, 3 vols (Imprimerie de la République, 1797), ii, p. 358 Google Scholar; Steblin, A History of Key Characteristics, pp. 101 and 353.

¹⁰ August Gathy, Musikalisches Conversations-Lexicon (Schuberth & Niemeyer, 1835), p. 66; Steblin, A History of Key Characteristics, p. 359 (translation mine).

¹¹ ‘Alle von den Grundskalen [C dur und a moll] weiter abstehenden Tonarten werden je mehr und mehr transzendent, entfernen sich von der schlichten Alltagswelt und werden zu Gebieten erdentrückten idealen Seins und Empfindens’; quoted in Stephani, Der Charakter der Tonarten, p. 66.

¹² ‘Die Tonarten mit Been erscheinen, gegenüber denen mit Kreuzen, als subjektiver, mehr in sich gekehrt […] Molltonarten mit vielen Been sind daher die verschlossensten, so zu sagen philosophischsten (f moll, b moll, es moll)’; ibid.

¹³ Beethoven’s statement ‘h moll Schwarze Tonart’ appears in the 1815 sketch for his Cello Sonata, op. 102 no. 2, in the Scheide Sketchbook, fol. 40^v. Available at the Princeton University Digital Library <http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/9019s254t> [accessed 4 February 2025].

¹⁴ Auhagen, Wolfgang, ‘Zur Entstehung der Tonartencharakteristik im 18. Jahrhundert’, in Perspektiven und Methoden einer Systemischen Musikwissenschaft, ed. by Niemöller, Klaus Wolfgang and Gätjen, Bram (Mohr Siebeck, 2004), pp. 89–96 (p. 89)Google Scholar; see also Wilson, ‘Of Hunting, Horns, and Heroes’, p. 166.

¹⁵ Many composers seemed willing to sacrifice key association in order to transpose for a singer, although Wagner is an important counterexample.

¹⁶ For instance, Friedrich Theodor Vischer attributes the difference in keys not to distances between intervals but to the general range in which a melody must be sung or played in each of the keys (Aesthetik, oder Wissenschaft des Schönen zum Gebrauche für Vorlesungen, 4 vols (Carl Mäcken, 1846–57), iv, Die Musik (1857), p. 876). Some at the end of the century believed that choirs and orchestras still used slightly tempered intervals (‘Dis-moll’, Musikalisches Conversations-Lexikon, ed. by Hermann Mendel, 2nd edn, 11 vols (Robert Oppenheim, 1870–83), iii (1873), pp. 181–82). F. A. Gevaert seems to agree, saying, ‘otherwise, what would become of our lovely enharmonic modulations?’; Traité général d’instrumentation (J. B. Katto, 1863), p. 190 n.). Others, such as Albert Lavignac, state their faith in key affect without particular justification (La Musique et les musiciens, 3rd rev. edn (Delagrave, 1896), p. 423).

¹⁷ ‘E-flat minor (Despair [Verzweiflung], kettle-drum, brick-red [Ziegelroth]); D-sharp minor (Fear [Angst], piccolo, reddish-purple [Graproth])’; Gräffer, Anton, Ueber Tonkunst, Sprache, Schrift und Bild (J. P. Sollinger, 1830)Google Scholar, Tables iii and iv, cited in Steblin, A History of Key Characteristics, pp. 161–62 and 369–70. Steblin notes (p. 162) that whereas the sensory associations here are individual, the affects are borrowed from Schubart. ‘F major is for me a lesser B-flat major; E-flat minor, in kind’; J. J. H. Ribock, ‘Über Musik; an Flötenliebhaber insonderheit’, Magazin der Musik, ed. by Carl Friedrich Cramer, 2 vols (Musicalische Niederlage, 1783–84), i, pp. 708–09. B♭ is further described with ‘majesty, quiet in its greatness, powerful-acting without operosity, pressing without pinching’; Steblin, A History of Key Characteristics, pp. 109–10.

¹⁸ Steblin, A History of Key Characteristics, pp. 111 and 355; cf. Ribock, ‘Über Musik’, p. 709.

¹⁹ For example, Rameau’s Traité de l’harmonie (1722) states: ‘The other keys are not in general use, and experience is the surest means by which to learn their properties’; Rameau, Treatise on Harmony, trans. and ed. by Philip Gossett (Dover, 1971), p. 164; quoted in Steblin, A History of Key Characteristics, p. 36.

²⁰ Jorgensen, Owen, Tuning: Containing the Perfection of Eighteenth-Century Temperament, the Lost Art of Nineteenth-Century Temperament, and the Science of Equal Temperament, Complete with Instructions for Aural and Electronic Tuning (Michigan State University Press, 1991), p. 153 Google Scholar.

²¹ Ibid.

²² Ibid., pp. 153 and 517. Jorgensen goes into further detail: ‘The key of E-flat minor was known as being horrible, frightful, and depressed to the extreme. This was true because in Werckmeister’s and Young’s well temperaments, the minor thirds E-flat G-flat were 21.5 cents narrower than just intonation minor thirds. This was typical for eighteenth century well temperament as recorded by theorists. In Pietro Aaron’s meantone temperament of 1523, the minor third E-flat G-flat was 46.4 cents narrower than a just intonation minor third, so the key of E-flat minor would have been more than twice as horrible in 1523. This explains why E-flat minor was a rarely used key before the late seventeenth century. The equal-tempered E-flat G-flat is only 15.6 cents narrower than a just intonation minor third. The E-flat G-flat in the representative Victorian temperament was 16.77 cents narrower than a just intonation minor third, so during the nineteenth century the key of E-flat minor was still a little more depressed sounding than it is today’; ibid., p. 580.

²³ Beverly Jerold takes a different view of many of the sources discussed by Jorgensen, and claims that equal temperament was in broader use than is typically accepted. In particular, she cites a notice about J. S. Bach’s playing, which observed that he modulated from D minor through E♭ minor to E minor, suggesting that ‘E-flat minor would be viable only with equal temperament’; Equal Temperament in the Eighteenth Century: The Ear versus Numbers (Brepols, 2023), p. 62. Regardless, organs could be tuned in irregular circulating temperaments at this time.

²⁴ Though Jorgensen asserts that ‘most tuners began their keyboard tuning with the note C’ (Tuning, p. 152), he also relates John Robison’s story of tuning a pianoforte centred on D rather than C (p. 274) — evidence both that tunings were sometimes re-centred and also that it was unusual enough to be remarked upon when it happened. See John Robison, ‘Temperament of the Scale of Music’, Supplement to the Third Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2 vols (Thomson Bonar, 1801), ii, p. 662.

²⁵ ‘G♭ dur/E♭ moll sind eben so gute thonarten als C dur/A moll und haben eben so viel recht zu der Modulation, als die letzten. in der stimung eines Claviers aber kan man die lücke nur getrost zwischen hinlegen weil solche paßage heutezu tage noch wenig befahren wird. ob ich gleich hoffe daß man mit der Zeit turn-pike road darüber hinmachen wird’; Herschel Family Archive, William Herschel to Jacob Herschel (28 April 1761), p. 130. My transcription follows Herschel’s orthography. Herschel’s unpublished music treatise of 1764–66 (University of Edinburgh Ms. No. Dk.7.35) speaks of a ‘usual’ modulation with these keys: ‘G-flat Dur [major] ought to be placed among the Modi marked with flats. For in the Modulation of a Piece of Music in that Modus, we generally pass to E-flat mollis [minor] which carries flats’ (sheaf B, p. 4). As his rationale is to ‘avoid a Superfluity of Signs’, he may only be saying that E♭ minor is preferable to D♯ minor because of the necessity of a double-sharp in the latter; thus better to start in G♭ than in F♯ major. Still, it is interesting that he addresses the keys at all.

²⁶ ‘Ich glaube daß die erfahrung bestätigen wird daß die Modulationen und berührungen nach der schärfen seite eine verschiedene würkung haben von denjenigen nach der niedrigen seite. Es liegt gewiß was heiteres in der Modul von 1dur nach der scharfen dur seite und was ziml. rauhes oder Kräftiges u. strenges in der Mod. von 1m nach der scharf dur seite. hergegen in der M. von 1d nach der nied. dur seite ligt etwas, hartes, kaltes, rauhes, Erhabenes, u. ernsthaftes. u.s.w.’; Herschel Family Archive, William Herschel to Jacob Herschel (8 April 1761), p. 115.

²⁷ Smith, Robert, Harmonics, or the Philosophy of Musical Sounds (J. Bentham, 1759)Google Scholar. Herschel credited the Harmonics with leading him to Smith’s Opticks, which in turn developed Herschel’s interest in telescope-building, leading to the instrument through which he discovered the planet Uranus.

²⁸ Jorgensen notes that Smith preferred D for centring his temperaments, for instance in his retuning of the organ at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was professor of mathematics; Tuning, p. 90. Herschel, an acolyte of Smith’s, left a bearing chart (giving instructions on tuning order) in his sister Caroline Herschel’s notebook c. 1773 (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Hanover Royal Music Archive OSB MSS 146, 3^r) which suggests pure fifths for C–G and E♭–B♭, and a particularly narrow one for D–A — an irregular temperament with effects that may differ from standard key associations.

²⁹ See Anna Magdalena Bach’s 1733 MS, held by the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin — Preußischer Kulturbesitz (D-B Mus.ms. Bach P 202) <http://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00001076> [accessed 4 February 2025], p. 24; see also a 1722 copy (D-B Mus. ms. Bach P 401) involving the same nine-flat arrangement.

³⁰ In Heinrich Philipp Boßler, Blumenlese für Klavierliebhaber, e[ine] musikal[ische] Wochenschrift, 6 vols (Speier, 1782–87), [iv] (1785), p. 97. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Digitalsammlung <http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb11132407_00049.html> [accessed 3 February 2025]. The composer is presumably Johann Friedrich Adam Eilenstein (1757–1830). The poem ‘Todesgedanken’ is not Matthison’s but a text beginning and ending ‘Wie schnell verfliessen meine Tage […] ich fühle mich schon starr und kalt’.

³¹ Friedrich Nicolai, Eyn feyner kleyner Almanach vol schönerr echterr liblicher Volckslieder, lustigerr Reyen unndt kleglicherr Mordgeschichte, gesungen von Gabriel Wunderlich, weyl. Benkelsengerrn zu Dessaw, herausgegeben von Daniel Seuberlich. Berlynn unndt Stettynn, Verlegts Friedrich Nicolai 1777–8 (Nicolai, 1777–78). The fictitious editor (Daniel Seuberlich) and the overly antique or country spellings are clues to the satirical intent.

³² Charpentier had earlier called it ‘horrible’ and ‘frightful’ in ‘Règles de composition’, MS 1692; cited in Steblin, A History of Key Characteristics, pp. 33–34. Mattheson said the character of keys with more than four sharps or flats was ‘too little known and must be left to posterity to be determined’; Das neu-eröffnete Orchestre (Der Autor und Benjamin Schillers Witwe, 1713), p. 251. Cf. Steblin, A History of Key Characteristics, pp. 41 and 304–05.

³³ ‘Es-Moll. Empfindungen der Bangigkeit des allertiefsten Seelendrangs, der hinbrütenden Verzweiflung, der schwärzesten Schwermut, der düstersten Seelenverfassung. Jede Angst, jedes Zagen des schaudernden Herzens, atmet aus dem gräßlichen Es-Moll. Wenn Gespenster sprechen könnten, so sprächen sie ungefähr in diesem Tone.’ See Schubart, Ideen zu einer Ästhetik der Tonkunst (J. V. Degen, 1806), p. 378; translation Steblin, A History of Key Characteristics, p. 249.

³⁴ Lists that omit E♭ minor include those by Vogler (1779 and 1812), Kellner and Cramer (1787), Knecht (1791), Grétry (1797), E. T. A. Hoffmann (1814), Reicha (1814), Gardiner and Stendhal (1817), J. J. Wagner (1823), Lichtenthal (1826), Seidel’s additions to Schubart (1828), Ebhardt (1830), and Müller (1830), as well as the 1787 publication of Schubart’s list that subtracts several of the keys. Further details on these lists can be found in Steblin, A History of Key Characteristics. Heinse’s 1785–86 Hildegard von Hohenthal calls it only a ‘vile rogue’; ibid., pp. 249 and 353.

³⁵ See ibid., pp. 249–51. Henri Weikert, Erklärung der gebräuchlichsten musikalischen Kunstwörter (Edler, 1827), pp. 25–27: ‘Feelings of anxiety, of despair, of blackest depression, of the most gloomy condition of the soul, of fear, of hesitation, and of shuddering.’ Gathy, Musikalisches Conversations-Lexicon, p. 66: ‘Anxiety of the soul’s deepest distress; fear and hesitation of the shuddering heart; the most gloomy condition of the soul.’

³⁶ See Steblin, A History of Key Characteristics, pp. 249–51. Galeazzi, Elementi teorico-pratici di musica, ii, p. 294: ‘It is extremely melancholy and induces sleep’, trans. and cited in Steblin, A History of Key Characteristics, p. 105. J. A. Schrader, Kleines Taschenwörterbuch der Musik (C. G. Fleckeisen, 1827), p. 157: ‘The key of the most frightful anguish and of bitter trepidation; rigid horror and black terror are sounded in these harmonies.’

³⁷ Helmholtz, Hermann L. F., On the Sensations of Tone, as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music, 2nd English edition, trans. and ed. by Ellis, Alexander J. (Longmans, Green, 1885), p. 551 Google Scholar. His key-affect list is condensed from Ernst Pauer’s Elements of the Beautiful in Music (Novello, 1877), p. 23. Lavignac, La Musique, p. 424.

³⁸ ‘Feelings of anxiety, of the soul’s deepest distress, of brooding despair, of blackest depression, and of the most gloomy condition of the soul. Every fear, every hesitation of the shuddering heart breathes out of horrible E-flat and D-sharp minor. If ghosts could speak they would certainly speak in this key. Even Quantz considered these keys to be the most suited for the perfect expression of the most sorrowful affects’; Gustav Schilling, Encyclopädie der gesammten musikalischen Wissenschaften, oder, Universal-Lexicon der Tonkunst, 2nd edn, 6 vols (Köhler, 1835–42), ii (1840), pp. 422–23. ‘E-flat or D-sharp minor is, to be sure, designated as a horrible key, and feelings of anxiety, of brooding despair, of the blackest depression are assigned to it, or, as Quantz has indicated, it is the most suitable for expressing sorrowful affects’; Ferdinand Hand, Ästhetik der Tonkunst, 2 vols (C. Hochhausen & Fournes, 1837), i, p. 226. The mention of Quantz is curious; Quantz actually said D♯ major (cf. Chapter 14 in Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversiere zu spielen (Voss, 1752), p. 139), but as it is in a list of minor keys, it is reasonable to interpret it, as these theorists did, as a misprint for minor. Steblin, however, views Quantz as intending major, saying ‘D-sharp major was a common Baroque spelling for E-flat major’; A History of Key Characteristics, p. 210 n. 39. Several lists, such as Berlioz’s Grand traité d’instrumentation et d’orchestration modernes (Schonenberger, [1843]), p. 33, list D♯ minor and E♭ minor separately, with different characters, but apart from Bach’s Fugue from the Well-Tempered Clavier, D♯ minor is lacking in examples, most likely due to legibility concerns with the necessary double-sharp on the dominant. Indeed, nineteenth-century editions of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, such as Czerny/Peters (1863) and Busoni (1894), rewrite the fugue in E♭ minor.

³⁹ As Steblin notes, besides its paraphrase in many places, Schubart’s list was reprinted by Ignaz Franz von Schönholz in the Wiener allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (17 April 1813), pp. 235–39, and also recommended by Franz Mosel’s Versuch einer Aesthetik des dramatischen Tonsatzes (1813), the Brockhaus Conversations-Lexicon, and the 1819 self-published Wiener Pianoforte-Schule by Friedrich Starke (wherein Schubart’s descriptions were actually printed before every exercise for that key); A History of Key Characteristics, pp. 162–63. Carl Seidel’s Charinomos: Beiträge zur allgemeinen Theorie und Geschichte der schönen Künste, 2 vols (Ferdinand Rubach, 1825–28), ii (1828), pp. 110–13, also reprinted it with footnotes adding repertory examples in a few keys.

⁴⁰ Schneider, Peter Joseph, System einer medizinischen Musik: Ein unentbehrliches Handbuch für Medizin=Beflissene, Vorsteher der Irren=Heilanstalten, praktische Aerzte und unmusikalische Lehrer verschiedener Disciplinen, 2 vols (Carl Georgi, 1835)Google Scholar. Schubart’s whole list is reproduced (i, pp. 285–91). I am grateful to Carmel Raz for drawing my attention to these excerpts.

⁴¹ ‘welche damals schon, seit zwei Jahren an einer völlig ausgebildeten Melancholie gelitten hatte. Anderweitige Heilversuche dagegen waren von mehreren Aerzten gemacht worden, aber alle ohne Erfolg. […] Wir fanden sie in dem Zustande der sogenannten Melancholia attonita. Halb staunend und halb sinnend, mehrentheils stumm, saß sie fast den ganzen Tag auf dem Sopha, und blickte unverwandt vor sich hin’; ibid., ii, pp. 250–51.

⁴² ‘Die Verabredung war so getroffen, daß ich zuerst einleitend auf dem Aeolodicon präludiren, dann einen der Kranken früher wohlgefälligen 4stimmigen Choral anstimmen würde. […] Stumm saß sie da, stumm wie ein Fisch, und unbeweglich, grade wie im Anfange. Nun begann ich meine Phantasie, in einem der Seelenstimmung der, in tiefe Melancholie Versunkenen, entsprechenden Tone — Es-moll. (S. Th. I. p. 288.) Leise, und so anschwellend, bis zum stärksten Fortissimo, von da ab zu einem mäßigen Piano, vollgriffig bald, bald einfach, in reinen Dreiklängen aushaltend, und so fort durch die verschiedenartigsten Lagen und Wendungen der Harmonien. Zober’s bemerkte bei dem 3maligen Crescendo, zu Anfange, und dem unmittelbar darauf erfolgen f.f. ein tiefes Athemholen und einen heftigen Schauder. Also ein gänzliches Ergreifen des totalen Nervensystems’; ibid., ii, p. 267.

⁴³ Hand, Ästhetik der Tonkunst, i, p. 226; in Steblin, A History of Key Characteristics, pp. 251 and 331.

⁴⁴ Schilling, Universal-Lexicon der Tonkunst, ii, pp. 422–23; in Steblin, A History of Key Characteristics, pp. 250 and 318.

⁴⁵ ‘Es-moll […] kommt als selbständige Tonart fast gar nicht in Gebrauch, da es, sechs Versetzungszeichen (s.d.) führend, in der Darstellung zu oft eine Ungleichheit der gleichnamigen Klänge zeigen würde, weshalb wir jede Auslassung über deren Scalatöne etc. unterlassen’; Musikalisches Conversations-Lexikon, iii, p. 424. This entry cites only ‘Selig sind die Todten’ in Spohr’s oratorio Die letzten Dinge — quite incorrectly, as the section is entirely in G♭ major.

⁴⁶ Musikalisches Conversations-Lexikon: Ergänzungsband (Oppenheim, 1883), p. 98.

⁴⁷ See ‘“Christus am Ölberge”, Oratorium für drei Solostimmen, Chor und Orchester, op. 85: Erstausgaben’ in the Digitales Archiv of the Beethoven-Haus, Bonn <https://www.beethoven.de/de/archive/view/node/4869416445542400/Oratorium> [accessed 17 June 2025], both the piano reduction (Klavierauszug) and the full score (Partitur) from Breitkopf & Härtel.

⁴⁸ Schindler, Anton Felix, Beethoven as I Knew Him, trans. by Jolly, Constance S., ed. by MacArdle, Donald W. (W. W. Norton, 1966), p. 367 Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ Ellison, The Key to Beethoven, pp. 13–42.

⁵⁰ See also Fidelio, op. 72, Trio, ‘Gut, Söhnchen, gut’, bars 91–92; Creatures of Prometheus, op. 43, movement 9 (Adagio), bars 17–27; ‘Die Liebe des Nächsten’, op. 48 no. 3, bars 12–15; Piano Sonata, op. 13, bars 51–62; Mass in C Major, op. 86, ‘Crucifixus’, bars 151–58; Symphony no. 3, ‘Eroica’, op. 55, movement 1, bars 322–26; Symphony no. 4, op. 60, Adagio, bars 50–64. Many other briefer or more modulatory passages exist.

⁵¹ E. T. A. Hoffmann, ‘Recension: Christus am Oelberge. Oratorium. In Musik ges. von L. v. Beethoven. Op. 85 etc.’; Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 14.1 (1 Jan 1812), col. 6.

⁵² Leonard G. Ratner, Classic Music: Expression, Form, and Style (Schirmer Books, 1980), p. 24. Note that Ratner includes ombra under the heading of fantasia style, but it has been widely accepted that ombra can be separate from fantasia; see Birgitte Moyer, ‘Ombra and Fantasia in Late Eighteenth-Century Theory and Practice’, in Convention in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Music: Essays in Honor of Leonard G. Ratner, ed. by Wye J. Allanbrook, Janet M. Levy, and William P. Mahrt (Pendragon, 1992), pp. 283–306; see also McClelland, Ombra, p. 5. Ratner explains Scheibe’s styles from Der critische Musikus: ‘He says that the high style must be stately and emphatic; the harmony must be full, the ideas fully carried through, the melody rich in invention, fresh, lively, and elevated. It should be used only for heroes, kings, and other great men and noble spirits; magnanimity, majesty, love of power, magnificence, pride, astonishment, anger, fear, madness, revenge, doubt, and other similar qualities and passions can only be expressed in the high style’; Classic Music, pp. 7–8.

⁵³ See McClelland, Ombra, passim. A taxonomy of ombra characteristics is provided in his Appendix A (p. 225).

⁵⁴ From the database The Operatic Library of Elector Maximilian Franz (1780–1794), compiled by Elisabeth Reisinger, Juliane Riepe, and John D. Wilson <http://www.univie.ac.at/operaticlibrary/db/> [accessed 4 February 2025].

⁵⁵ See the table in the Appendix for passages. It is unclear whether Beethoven actually did know Graun’s Der Tod Jesu, which had a strong annual performance tradition in Berlin, but a copy existed in Elector Max Franz’s library and was available from 1784. Jahn Czerny claimed that his father had introduced Beethoven to Der Tod Jesu, and that Beethoven said the fugues were ‘passable, the rest ordinary’; quoted in Thayer’s Life of Beethoven, rev. and ed. by Elliott Forbes, 2 vols (Princeton University Press, 1967), i, p. 367, who placed this around 1805.

⁵⁶ McClelland, Ombra, pp. 30–31.

⁵⁷ Ibid., pp. 7 and 27; see also Moyer, ‘Ombra and Fantasia’, pp. 289–93.

⁵⁸ McClelland, Ombra, p. 39; Macdonald, ‘[G-Flat Major]’, p. 222.

⁵⁹ McClelland, Ombra, pp. 32–33.

⁶⁰ Ibid., p. 40.

⁶¹ Only the framing movements are in E♭ minor; internal movements use other flat minor keys. MS copy in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin <http://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/werkansicht/?PPN=PPN81069266X> [accessed 4 February 2025].

⁶² Wilson, ‘Of Hunting, Horns, and Heroes’, p. 173.

⁶³ Schubert’s well-loved ‘Et incarnatus est’ for his Mass in E♭ Major is set in A♭ major, and similarly darkens to the extremely melancholy A♭ minor for the Crucifixus.

⁶⁴ Schrader’s 1827 list uses a number of Zumsteeg ballads as well as Haydn and Mozart examples to substantiate its key affects; see Steblin, A History of Key Characteristics, p. 178.

⁶⁵ ‘Nachricht aus Stuttgart’, Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 4.20 (10 February 1802), col. 326.

⁶⁶ Related antecedents include poems such as ‘Sweet William’s Ghost’ and ‘Margaret’s Ghost’ from Thomas Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, 3 vols (J. Dodsley, 1765), with which Bürger was certainly familiar (though perhaps not before writing ‘Lenore’). Another antecedent to ‘Lenore’ is in the three-volume Collection of Old Ballads (J. Roberts, 1723–25), with the title ‘The Suffolk Miracle: Or, a Relation of a Young Man, who a Month after his Death appear’d to his Sweetheart, and carry’d her on Horseback behind him for forty Miles in two Hours, and was never seen after but in his Grave’. It is unknown whether Bürger could have seen this ballad.

⁶⁷ For more on the influence of Colma’s lament, see Sarah Clemmens Waltz, German Settings of Ossianic Texts, 1770–1815 (Recent Researches in the Music of the Classical Era 100) (A-R Editions, 2016), pp. xxi–xxii and 55–91. Zumsteeg’s setting can be found in its entirety here, as can concordant examples by C. F. Zelter and J. F. Reichardt.

⁶⁸ McClelland, , Tempesta: Stormy Music in the Eighteenth Century (Lexington Books, 2017), pp. viii and 219 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁹ Porter, Beyond Fingal’s Cave, p. 209. Works he notes with this key include Kozłowski’s 1805 incidental music to Ozerov’s Fingal, Jules-August Bordier’s 1885 Un rêve d’Ossian, Simon van Milligen’s 1899 opera Dartula, Schoenberg’s fragmentary Darthulas Grabgesang (1903), and Aloys Fleischmann’s 1930 cantata Dartula aus Ossian, all of which include E♭ minor in ombra or stormy passages.

⁷⁰ Herder’s essay ‘Homer und Ossian’, which compares the Greek with the so-called ‘Homer of the North’, is a representative essay for the contemporary consideration of the Ossianic tales as a common northern heritage; ‘und Ossian, Homer’, Die Horen: Eine Monatsschrift, ed. by Schiller, (J. G. Cotta, [1795]), x, pp. 86–107 Google Scholar. This consideration supplanted the opinion handed down by Tacitus that the illiterate Nordic/Germanic tribes had ‘no art’ and also opened the path for acceptance of other northern epics such as the Nibelungenlied and the Kalevala.

⁷¹ See Percy, Reliques, iii, pp. 307–10. The northern roots of ‘Richard und Mathilde’ remain apparent in translation by the retention of place names (e.g. the River Liffey in Ireland). Germans often did not differentiate overmuch between Scottish, English, and Irish source material.

⁷² A review praised this section as better than the setting in general, which was seen as having ‘small flaws in the text-setting, whereas the passage “Sie starb” etc. p. 43 is much better’ [‘kleine Flecken in der Behandlung der Worte… wogegen die Stelle “Sie starb” u.s.f. S. 43 desto besser ist’]; ‘Recension: Kleine Balladen und Lieder mit Klavierbegleitung von I. R. Zumsteeg, 2ter Heft [etc.]’, Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 3.5 (29 October 1800), col. 85.

⁷³ This is a partial modernization of Percy’s version, which uses qu for w and z for y. A fuller modernization is in Example 12.

⁷⁴ See Martin Rackwitz, Travels to Terra Incognita: The Scottish Highlands and Hebrides in Early Modern Travellers’ Accounts c. 1600 to 1800 (Waxmann, 2007), p. 219. See also Katherine Haldane Grenier, Tourism and Identity in Scotland, 1770–1914: Creating Caledonia (Ashgate, 2005), pp. 37–38.

⁷⁵ Deathridge, John and Dahlhaus, Carl, The New Grove Wagner (W. W. Norton, 1984), p. 26 Google Scholar. See also Millington, Barry, ‘The Sources and Genesis of the Text’, in Richard Wagner: Der fliegende Höllander, ed. by Grey, Thomas (Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 25–35 (p. 32)Google Scholar. For a certain time, under the influence of Ossian, Scandinavian and Celtic nationalities were somewhat interchangeable in imaginations of the North.

⁷⁶ For the evolution of the ‘Unwetterszene’ or tempest scene from a seascape backdrop with a harbour or rocky coast and stormy musical representation, including the relation of ombra and Sturm und Drang elements with the sea storm, see Busch, Gudrun, ‘Die Unwetterszene in der romantischen Oper’, in Die ‘Couleur local’ in der Oper des 19. Jahrhunderts, ed. by Becker, Heinz (Gustav Bosse, 1976), pp. 161–212 Google Scholar (esp. p. 162).

⁷⁷ Indeed, in mapping the humours or temperaments (sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic) onto the points of the compass, many have directly identified melancholy (cold, dry) with the North, as Robert Burton’s 1621 Anatomy of Melancholy seems to. See [Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy (John Lichfield and James Short, 1621), p. 109. Others have identified the North as the phlegmatic (cold, wet) type.

⁷⁸ von Spaun, Josef, ‘Notes on my Association with Franz Schubert (1858)’, in Schubert: Memoirs by his Friends, trans. by Ley, Rosamond and Nowell, John, ed. by Deutsch, Otto Erich (Adam and Charles Black, 1958), p. 127 Google Scholar.

⁷⁹ See Dickensheets, Janice, ‘The Topical Vocabulary of the Nineteenth Century’, Journal of Musicological Research, 31 (2012), pp. 97–137 (pp. 126–27), doi:10.1080/01411896.2012.682887.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also the section on ‘northern dialect’ in Clemmens, Sarah, The Highland Muse in Romantic German Music (UMI, 2007), pp. 382–86Google Scholar.

⁸⁰ Mies, Der Charakter der Tonarten, p. 136, notes that Brahms uses E♭ minor ‘strikingly often’, and that his use suggests it was the key of ‘highest sadness and melancholy’ and indeed of ‘the broken heart’.

⁸¹ Alfred Lorenz identifies three periods as being in E♭ minor: the ‘Nornenszene’, ‘Hagenwacht’, and ‘Brünnhilde schreit ihre Schmach in alle Winde’; Das Geheimnis der Form bei Richard Wagner, 2nd edn, 4 vols (Hans Schneider, 1966), i, pp. 40–44.

⁸² Alkan’s is an early example of Dies irae use, before Liszt began working on the Totentanz in 1838; it seems to refer to Berlioz’s seminal use of the Dies irae to signify the demonic in the Symphonie fantastique, movement 5.

⁸³ Macdonald notes a number of studies in all keys besides Chopin’s op. 28, such as those by Hummel, Kalkbrenner, Henselt, and Alkan; ‘[G-Flat Major]’, p. 225.

⁸⁴ Ellison, The Key to Beethoven, p. 145, citing Ledbetter, David, Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier: The 48 Preludes and Fugues (Yale University Press, 2002), p. 178 Google Scholar.

⁸⁵ Moreover, as Jeffrey Kallberg notes, Chopin associated the low register with E♭ minor in general, and his earlier sketch for the work might have considered a ‘devil’s trill’ conceit which the dark E♭-minor key would support; see ‘Chopin and the Aesthetic of the Sketch: A New Prelude in E♭ Minor?’, Early Music, 29.3 (2001), pp. 408–22 (pp. 413 and 418), doi:10.1093/earlyj/XXIX.3.408.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸⁶ Mies, Der Charakter der Tonarten, p. 135. Clementi, ‘Exercice: Vivace’ (1814), Préludes et exercices dans tous les tons majeurs et mineurs; Stephen Heller, 24 Präludien, op. 81 no. 14, ‘Leidenschaftlich’ (1853); Ignaz Moscheles, 24 Études, op. 70 no. 8, ‘Allegro agitato’ (étude on octave passages) (1826).

⁸⁷ E.g. Henselt, Douze études caractéristiques, op. 2 no. 8, ‘Allegro agitato ed appassionato’ (1838); Brahms, Clarinet Sonata, op. 120 no. 2, movement 2, ‘Allegro appassionato’ (1894).

⁸⁸ In jazz, the use of E♭ minor for works like Dave Brubeck’s ‘Take Five’ and Thelonious Monk’s ‘Round Midnight’ suggests playability as a factor, in that a serviceable blues scale can be constructed based primarily on the black keys.

⁸⁹ Robert Burns to George Thomson (November 1794): ‘Ye banks and braes o’ bonie Doon […] A good many years ago, Mr. James Miller […] expressed an ardent ambition to be able to compose a Scots air. Mr. Clarke, partly by way of joke, told him to keep to the black keys of the harpsichord, and preserve some kind of rhythm, and he would infallibly compose a Scots air. Certain it is, that in a few days, Mr. Miller produced the rudiments of an air, which Mr. Clarke, with some touches and corrections, fashioned into the tune in question. Ritson, you know, has the same story of the Black keys’; The Works of Robert Burns, 2nd edn, 4 vols (T. Cadell, 1801), iv, pp. 196–97.

⁹⁰ ‘Schottisches Lied für das Piano=Forte [von J. B. Cramer]’, in Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, mit besonderer Rücksicht auf den österreichischen Kaiserstaat, 2.5 (31 January 1818), Beylage No. 1.

⁹¹ G♭ major seems to have no such association; Schubert, apparently, uses it to communicate ‘rest’ or ‘death’, and its other uses have been enumerated by Hugh Macdonald in ‘[G-Flat Major]’.

⁹² Arnold Bax programme note (12 April 1934), cited in Lewis Foreman, Bax: A Composer and his Times, 2nd edn (Scolar Press, 1988), p. 278. Other twentieth-century works in E♭ minor include Horatio Parker’s Organ Concerto, op. 55 (1902); D’Indy’s Souvenir, op. 68 no. 6 (1911); Rachmaninoff’s Études-tableaux, op. 33 nos. 5–6 (1911) and op. 39 no. 5 (1916–17); Oskar Böhme’s Trumpet Sextet, op. 30 (1913); passages in Sibelius’s Symphony no. 5 (1915); Healey Willan’s Introduction, Passacaglia, and Fugue for Organ, op. 149 (1916); the first movement of Bax’s Symphony no. 1 (1922); Nikolai Myaskovsky’s Symphony no. 6, op. 23 (1922–23); Khachaturian’s Toccata in E♭ Minor (1932); Maurice Duruflé’s Prelude from the Suite, op. 5 (1933), which evokes the Dies irae; Janis Ivanov’s Symphony no. 4, ‘Sinfonia Atlantida’ (1941); and Andrei Eshpai’s Symphony no. 1 (1959).