Į-flat major was the second-flattest key Mozart used in his music.

'E-flat was the key Haydn chose most often for 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-flat major, Haydn often substituted cors anglais for oboes in this period', and also in Symphony No. However, in the Classical period, E-flat major was not limited to solely bombastic brass music. Mahler's vast and heroic Eighth Symphony is in E-flat and his Second Symphony also ends in this key. The heroic theme from the Jupiter movement of Holst's The Planets is in E-flat major. Another notable heroic piece in the key of E-flat major is Richard Strauss's A Hero's Life. 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. 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.' Beethoven's (hypothetical) 10th Symphony is also in E-flat. His Eroica Symphony, Emperor Concerto and Grand Sonata are all in this key. The key of E-flat major is often associated with bold, heroic music, in part because of Beethoven's usage.

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E flat major clarinet