Sturm und Drang ( ) (the conventional
translation is "Storm and Stress"; a more literal translation,
however, might be
storm and urge,
storm and
longing,
storm and drive or
storm and
impulse) is the name of a movement in
German literature and
music taking place from the late 1760s
through the early 1780s in which individual
subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of
emotion were given free expression in response to the confines of
rationalism imposed by
the
Enlightenment and associated
aesthetic
movements.
The philosopher
Johann Georg
Hamann is considered to be the ideologue of
Sturm und
Drang, and
Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe was a notable proponent of the movement,
though he and
Friedrich Schiller
ended their period of association with it, initiating what would
become
Weimar Classicism.
Historical background
Counter-Enlightenment
French
Neoclassicism, a movement
beginning in the early
baroque, and its
preoccupation with
rational congruity, was
the principal target of rebellion for authors who would be known as
adherents to the
Sturm und Drang movement. The overt
sentimentalism and need to project an
objective, anti-personal
characterization or image was at odds with the latent desire to
express troubling personal emotions and an individual subjective
perspective on reality.
The ideals of
rationalism,
empiricism and
universalism traditionally associated with the
Enlightenment were combated by an emerging notion that the reality
constructed in the wake of this monumental change in values was not
an adequate reflection of the human experience and that a
revolutionary restatement was necessary to fully convey the
extremes of inner pain and torment, and the reality that personal
motivations consist of a balance between the pure and impure.
Origin of the term
The term
Sturm und Drang first appeared as the title to a
play about the ongoing
American
Revolution by German author
Friedrich Maximilian Klinger,
published in 1776, in which the author gives violent expression to
difficult
emotions and heralds individual
expression and subjectivity over the
natural order of rationalism. Though it is argued that literature
and music associated with
Sturm und Drang predate this
seminal work, it is this point at which historical analysis begins
to outline a distinct aesthetic movement occurring between the late
1760s through the early 1780s of which German artists of the period
were distinctly
self-conscious.
Contrary to the dominant post-enlightenment
literary movements of the time, this
reaction, seemingly spontaneous in its appearance, came to be
associated with a wide breadth of German authors and composers of
the mid to late
classical
period.
Sturm und Drang came to be associated with literature or
music aiming to frighten the audience or imbue them with extremes
of emotion until the dispersement of the movement into
Weimar Classicism and the eventual
transition into early
Romanticism where
socio-political aims were
incorporated (these aims asserting unified values contrary to
despotism and limitations on human
freedom) along with a religious treatment of all things natural.
There is
much debate regarding whose work should and should not be included
in the canon of Sturm und Drang; there being an argument
for limiting the movement to Goethe, Herder, Lenz and their direct
German
associates writing works of fiction and philosophy
between 1770 and the early 1780s.
The alternative perspective is that of a literary movement
inextricably linked to simultaneous developments in prose, poetry,
and drama extending its direct influence throughout the
German-speaking lands until the end of the
18th century. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the originators
of the movement viewed it as a time of premature exuberance which
was then abandoned in later years for often conflicting artistic
pursuits.
Related aesthetic and philosophical movements
Kraftmensch existed as a precursor to
Sturm und Drang among dramatists beginning with
F.M. Klinger, the expression of
which is seen in the radical degree to which
individuality need appeal to no outside force
outside the self nor be tempered by
rationalism. These
ideals
are identical to those of
Sturm und Drang, and it can be
argued that the later name exists to catalog a number of parallel,
co-influential movements in
German
literature rather than express anything substantially different
than what German dramatists were achieving in the violent plays
attributed to the
Kraftmensch
movement.
Major philosophical/theoretical influences on the literary
Sturm und Drang movement were
Johann Georg Hamann (especially the 1762
text
Aesthetica in nuce. Eine Rhapsodie in
kabbalistischer Prose) and
Johann Gottfried Herder, both from
Königsberg, and both formerly in contact with
Immanuel Kant. Significant theoretical
statements of Sturm und Drang aesthetics by the movement's central
dramatists themselves include Lenz'
Anmerkungen übers
Theater and Goethe's
Von deutscher Baukunst and
Zum Schäkespears Tag (
sic). The most important
contemporary document was the 1773 volume
Von deutscher Art und
Kunst. Einige fliegende Blätter, a collection of
essays which included commentaries by Herder on Ossian and
Shakespeare, along with contributions by Goethe,
Paolo Frisi (in translation from the Italian),
and
Justus Möser.
Sturm und Drang in literature
Characteristics
The
protagonist in a typical
Sturm
und Drang stage work,
poem, or
novel is driven to action not by pursuit of noble
means nor by true motives, but by
revenge
and
greed. Further, this action to which the
primary character is drawn is often one of
violence.
Goethe's unfinished
Prometheus exemplifies
this along with the common ambiguity provided by the interspersion
of
humanistic platitudes next to outbursts
of irrationality. The literature with
Sturm und Drang has
an anti-
aristocrat slant and
places value on those things humble, natural, or intensely real
(i.e. painful, tormenting, or frightening).
The story of hopeless love and eventual suicide presented in
Goethe's
sentimental novel The Sorrows of Young
Werther (1774) is an example of the author's tempered
introspection regarding his love and torment.
Friedrich Schiller's drama,
Die Räuber (1781), provided the
groundwork for
melodrama to become a
recognized dramatic form through a plot portraying the conflict
between two aristocratic brothers, Franz and
Karl Moor. Franz is portrayed as a villain
attempting to cheat Karl out of his inheritance, though the motives
for his action are complex and initiate a thorough investigation of
good and evil. Both of these works are seminal examples of
Sturm und Drang in
German
literature.
Notable literary works
- Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe (1749–1832):
- Zum Schäkespears Tag (1771)
- Sesenheimer Lieder (1770–1771)
- Prometheus
(1772–1774)
- Götz von
Berlichingen (1773)
- Clavigo (1774)
- Die Leiden des
jungen Werthers (1774)
- Mahomets Gesang (1774)
- Adler und Taube (1774)
- An Schwager Kronos (1774)
- Gedichte der Straßburger und Frankfurter Zeit
(1775)
- Stella. Ein Schauspiel für Liebende
(1776)
- Die Geschwister (1776)
- Friedrich Schiller
(1759–1805):
- Jakob Michael Reinhold
Lenz (1751–1792)
- Anmerkung über das Theater nebst angehängtem übersetzten
Stück Shakespeares (1774)
- Der Hofmeister oder Vorteile der Privaterziehung
(1774)
- Lustspiele nach dem Plautus fürs deutsche Theater
(1774)
- Die Soldaten (1776)
- Friedrich Maximilian
Klinger (1752–1831):
- Das leidende Weib (1775)
- Sturm und Drang (1776)
- Die Zwillinge (1776)
- Simsone Grisaldo (1776)
- Gottfried August
Bürger (1747–1794):
- Lenore (1773)
- Gedichte (1778)
- Wunderbare Reisen zu Wasser und zu Lande, Feldzüge und
lustige Abenteuer des Freiherren von Münchhausen (1786)
- Heinrich Wilhelm
von Gerstenberg (1737–1823):
- Gedichte eines Skalden (1766)
- Briefe über Merkwürdigkeiten der Literatur
(1766–67)
- Ugolino (1768)
- Johann Georg Hamann
(1730–1788):
- Sokratische Denkwürdigkeiten für die lange Weile des
Publikums zusammengetragen von einem Liebhaber der langen
Weile (1759)
- Kreuzzüge des Philologen (1762)
- Johann Jakob Wilhelm
Heinse (1746–1803):
- Ardinghello und die glückseligen Inseln (1787)
- Johann Gottfried Herder
(1744–1803):
- Fragmente über die neuere deutsche Literatur
(1767–1768)
- Kritische Wälder oder Betrachtungen, die Wissenschaft und
Kunst des Schönen betreffend, nach Maßgabe neuerer Schriften
(1769)
- Journal meiner Reise im Jahre (1769)
- Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprache (1770)
- Von deutscher Art und Kunst, einige fliegende Blätter
(1773)
- Volkslieder (1778-79)
- Vom Geist der Hebräischen Poesie (1782–1783)
- Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit
(1784–1791)
In music
The Classical era music (1750-1800) associated with
Sturm und
Drang was predominantly written in a
minor key conveying a sense of difficult or
depressing sentiment. The major
themes
of a piece tend to be angular, with large leaps and unpredictable
melodic contour.
Tempos
change rapidly and unpredictably, as do
dynamics in order to reflect strong changes
in emotion. Pulsing
rhythms and
syncopation are common as are racing lines in
the
soprano or
alto
registers. For string players,
tremolo is a
point of emphasis, as are sudden and dramatic dynamic changes and
accents.
History
Musical theater stands as the
meeting place where the literary movement
Sturm und Drang
enters the realm of
musical
composition with the aim of increasing emotional expression in
opera. The
obligato recitative is a prime example.
Here,
orchestral accompaniment provides an
intense underlay capable of vivid tone-painting to the solo
recitative (recitative itself being
influenced by
Greek monody—the highest form of individual emotional
expression in neo-platonic thought).
Christoph Willibald Gluck's 1761
opera,
Don
Juan, exemplifies the emergence of
Sturm und
Drang in music including explicit reference in the program
notes that the intent of the D minor finale was to evoke fear in
the listener.
Jean Jacques
Rousseau's
Pygmalion (1770) is a similarly
important bridge in its use of underlying
instrumental music to convey the mood of
spoken
drama to the audience. The first
example of musical
melodrama,
Goethe and others important to German literature were
influenced by this work.
Nevertheless, in comparison to the influence of
Sturm und
Drang on literature, the influence on
musical composition remained limited and
many efforts to label music as conforming to this thought current
are tenuous at best.
Vienna
, the seat of
the major German-speaking
composers—Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart and Joseph Haydn
specifically—was a cosmopolitan city
with an international culture. Hence, those writing
instrumental music in the city were
writing more expressive music in
minor
modes with innovative
melodic elements as
the result of a longer progression in artistic movements occurring
throughout Europe. The clearest connections can be realized in
opera and the early predecessors of
program music such as
Haydn's
Farewell
Symphony.
Haydn
A
Sturm und Drang period is often attributed to
Austrian composer
Joseph
Haydn between the late 1760s through the early 1770s. Works
during this period often feature an impassioned or agitated
element, although pinning this as worthy of inclusion in the
Sturm und Drang movement is difficult.
Haydn never states this
self-conscious literary movement as the
motivation for his new compositional style. Though
Haydn may have not considered his music as a direct
statement affirming these anti-
rational
ideals (there is still an overarching adherence to form and motivic
unity), one can draw a connection to the influence of
musical theatre upon his
instrumental works with
Haydn's writing essentially two degrees removed from
Goethe and his compatriots.
Mozart
Mozart's
Symphony No. 25 (1773), otherwise known as the
'Little' G Minor Symphony, is unusual for a
classical symphony as it is in a minor
key, being one of two minor
symphonies
written by
Mozart in his career. Beyond its
minor key, the
symphony demonstrates rhythmic
syncopation along with the jagged themes
associated with musical
Sturm und Drang. More interesting
is the emancipation of the
wind
instruments in this piece with the
violin
yielding to colorful bursts from the
oboe and
flute. Exhibiting the ordered presentation of
agitation and stress expected in the literature of
Sturm und
Drang, it is the influence of
Vanhal's
manic-depressive minor key pieces on
Mozart's writing rather than a
self-conscious adherence to a German literary
movement which can be held responsible for Mozart's
harmonic and
melodic
experiments in
Symphony No
25.
Notable composers and works
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
- Symphonies, keyboard concertos and sonatas
Johann Christian Bach
Johann Christoph
Friedrich Bach
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach
- Adagio und Fuge in D minor Falk 65
Joseph Haydn
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Luigi Boccherini
- Symphony in D minor La Casa del Diavolo G. 506
(1771)
Carl Ditters von
Dittersdorf
In visual art
The parallel movement in the
visual arts
can be witnessed in
paintings of storms and
shipwrecks showing the terror and irrational destruction wrought by
nature.
These pre-romantic
works were fashionable in Germany from the
1760s on through the 1780s, illustrating a public audience for
emotionally provocative artwork. Additionally, disturbing
visions and portrayals of
nightmares were
gaining an audience in Germany as evidenced by
Goethe's possession and admiration of paintings by
Fuseli capable of 'giving the viewer a good
fright.' Notable artists included
Joseph
Vernet,
Philip James de
Loutherbourg, and
Henry
Fuseli.
See also
Footnotes
- Preminger, Alex; Brogan, T. V. F. (Eds). (1993) The New
Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton:
Princeton University. pg. 1
- Pascal, Roy. (Apr., 1952). The Modern Language Review,
Vol. 47, No. 2. pp. 129–151. pg. 32.
- Pascal. Pg 129.
- Heckscher, William S. (1966–1967) Simiolus: Netherlands
Quarterly for the History of Art, Vol. 1, No. 2. pp. 94–105.
Pg. 94.
- Leidner, Alan. (Mar., 1989). C. PMLA, Vol. 104, No. 2, pp.
178-189. Pg. 178
- Alan Liedner Pg. 178
- Heartz/Bruce, Daniel and Alan Brown. (Accessed 21 March 2007). 'Sturm und Drang', Grove Music Online,
"http://www.grovemusic.com/shared/views/article.html?section=music.27035"
- Brown, A. Peter. (Spring, 1992). The Journal of
Musicology, Vol. 10, No. 2. pp. 192-230. Pg. 198
- Wright, Craig and Bryan Simms. (2006) Music in Western
Civilization. Belmont: Thomson Schirmer. Pg. 423
- A. Peter Brown. Pg. 198
- Daniel Heartz/Bruce Pg. 1
References
- Baldick, Chris. (1990) The Concise Oxford Dictionary of
Literary Terms. Oxford: Oxford University.
- Brown, A. Peter. (Spring, 1992). The Journal of
Musicology, Vol. 10, No. 2. pp. 192–230.
- Heartz/Bruce, Daniel and Alan Brown. (Accessed 21 March 2007). Sturm und
Drang, Grove Music Online,
"http://www.grovemusic.com/shared/views/article.html?section=music.27035"
- Heckscher, William S. (1966–1967) Simiolus: Netherlands
Quarterly for the History of Art, Vol. 1, No. 2. pp.
94–105.
- Leidner, Alan. (Mar., 1989). C. PMLA, Vol. 104, No. 2, pp.
178–189.
- Pascal, Roy. (Apr., 1952). The Modern Language Review,
Vol. 47, No. 2. pp. 129–151.
- Preminger, Alex; Brogan, T. V. F. (Eds). (1993) The New
Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton:
Princeton University.
- Wright, Craig and Bryan Simms. (2006) Music in Western
Civilization. Belmont: Thomson Schirmer.
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