Musical Offerings, Spring 2019

Musical Offerings ⦁ 2019 ⦁ Volume 10 ⦁ Number 1 35 of their similarities in style: “The opening-up of established forms in poetry and music by Klopstock’s free rhythms or by the fantasy in Bach’s keyboard writing, the quasi-spontaneous form modelled on actual impromptu playing and preserving its free-ranging character, reflects the desire of poet and musician alike to find immediate expression for the emotional content of his art.” 21 The impassioned Sturm und Drang style had several distinguishable musical characteristics. One characteristic was an increased use of the minor mode. In eighteenth-century instrumental music, one rarely finds minor keys being used as principal tonalities. Only ten of Haydn’s 107 symphonies are in minor keys, six of which were written during the peak of his Sturm und D rang phase from 1768 to 1773. Thus, the sparse use of minor keys stood out much more in this period, signifying even greater emotional intensity. Another characteristic of Sturm und Drang in music was a fascination with contrapuntal devices such as canons and fugatos. The use of these contrapuntal devices in Sturm und Drang pieces was not authentic counterpoint, but rather an attempt to rebel against the popular homophonic style galant of the period. Other characteristics of Sturm und Drang include driving, syncopated rhythms, melodic motives built on wide leaps, increased harmonic tension, sharp dissonances, extended modulations, and a broader dynamic range. 22 Scholars note that Sturm und Drang , like Empfindsamkeit , foreshadows Romanticism in its philosophical values. According to Lilian Furst, “ Sturm und Drang foreshadowed very many of the basic concepts of Romanticism: the belief in the autonomy of the divinely inspired genius, the release of the imagination from the bondage of ‘good taste,’ the primacy of spontaneous and intuitive feeling, the complete freedom of artistic expression, and finally, the notion of organic growth and development, from which arose both an interest in the past, particularly the Middle Ages, and a new pantheistic vision of nature as part of a unified cosmos.” 23 Other scholars have noticed similarities not just in the philosophies behind Sturm und Drang and Romanticism, but also in their musical sound. Barry Brook conducted a series of informal experiments among music majors and music faculty in preparation for his research on the 21 Stoljar, Poetry and Song , 64. 22 Brook, “ Sturm und Drang and the Romantic Period,” 278. 23 Furst, “Romanticism in Historical Perspective,” 121.