ABSTRACT
The key of E-flat major elicited idiosyncratic chromatic treatment from Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. For instance, several of their pieces in that key feature Cb/B. A myriad of nineteenth-century works in E-flat do so as well, but they tend to make B a full-fledged key center, one set in competition with E-flat. In other words, whereas in Classical works the tonal problem represented by B is readily soluble, in Romantic works the problem is more recalcitrant. That pronounced problem or tension assumes a variety of dramatic or narrative guises, ones often specified by song texts, programs, titles, and historical circumstances.
