The key of E-flat major is the heroic key in music. As such, its roots are usually traced to Beethoven’s “Eroica” symphony, but in fact, they stretch back even further than Beethoven, at least to the Mozart of The Magic Flute and the 39th Symphony.
Richard Strauss chose deliberately when he set Ein Heldenleben, the last of his great tone poems, in E-flat. He wanted the associations with nobility of spirit and action. If there were any doubt about his intentions in this enormous work, whose title means “a hero’s life” in German, Strauss dispelled it with his aggressive, assertive and huge brass section. He wrote to a friend that he was scoring Ein Heldenleben for so many horns because they were a “yardstick of heroism.”
Strauss intended Ein Heldenleben to be an illustration of his obstacles removed, of his achievements and triumphs.
How strange to think of a young man of 34 reflecting back on a lifetime of accomplishment already so rich, as if his career were drawing to a close. In fact, all Strauss’ great operas–including the masterpieces Salome (1905), Elektra (1909), and Der Rosenkavalier (1911) — came in the future. He would live another half-century after composing Ein Heldenleben.
Here is the music as conducted by my own great favorite, Carlos Kleiber:
