Musical Offerings, Spring 2019

36 Dellaperute ⦁ Emanuel Bach relationship between Sturm und Drang and Romanticism. The results showed that most of the time, over half of the listeners could not distinguish between the two but mistook Sturm und Drang for Romanticism. Based on this, Brook suggests that perhaps our understanding of Classicism and Romanticism is too narrow: Why is our understanding of the style, or rather of the styles, of the so-called Classical Era in music (1750- 1825) not broad enough—nor precise enough—to readily identify and include the works of the Sturm und Drang (c. 1770)? Why do we seem to be so easily misled by relatively obvious ‘romantic’ style characteristics such as use of minor keys, dynamic extremes, and sombre moods, while ignoring more fundamental style elements such as phrase structure, tonal motion, and harmonic rhythm? 24 Since empfindsamer Stil is closely related to (and overlaps) Sturm und Drang , and since Sturm und Drang is pre-Romantic both in philosophical ideals and in musical sound, one can reason that this would further support the notion that empfindsamer Stil is a pre-Romantic style. To summarize thus far, there is ample evidence for the idea that Emanuel Bach’s empfindsamer Stil is indeed a pre-Romantic movement. Its philosophical ideals are similar to those of the Romantic era, and it is closely associated with the Sturm und Drang movement in literature and song that is also pre-Romantic both in its philosophical principles and in its musical characteristics. Emanuel Bach and Beethoven If Empfindsamkeit is truly a pre-Romantic movement, therefore, one might expect several qualities of Emanuel Bach’s music to anticipate that of Beethoven, who is considered by many to be the forerunner of Romanticism in music. One might even speculate that Emanuel Bach’s empfindsamer Stil may have had a direct influence on Beethoven, considering the reverence Beethoven held for Emanuel Bach: “Of Emanuel Bach's pianoforte works I have only a few things, yet a few by that true artist serve not only for high enjoyment but also for study,” he once said. He later requested in a letter to a friend, “I should like to have 24 Brook, “ Sturm und Drang and the Romantic Period,” 270.