Dictionary:
Sturm und Drang (shtʊrm' ʊnt dräng') 
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[German, storm and stress, after Sturm und Drang, a drama by Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger (1752-1831).]
Wordsmith Words:
Sturm und Drang |
(SHTOORM oont DRANG)
noun
Turmoil; upheaval.
Etymology
From German Sturm und Drang (translated as: storm and stress, literally: storm and urge/yearning), title of the 1776 play about the American Revolution, by dramatist Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger (1752-1831). It was also the name of an 18th century German literary movement characterized by greater expression of emotional unrest
The name of the Durmstrang Institute, one of the wizarding schools in the Harry Potter series, is a spoonerism of Sturm und Drang.
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:
Sturm und Drang |
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Thesaurus:
Sturm und Drang |
noun
Music Encyclopedia:
Sturm und Drang |
‘Storm and stress’: a movement in German letters, reflected in the other arts, that reached its highpoint in the 1770s. Its aim was to frighten, to stun, to overcome with emotion; it emphasized an anti-rational, subjective approach to the arts. The young Goethe was the leading figure. In music, ‘Sturm und Drang’ tendencies are found in Gluck's Don Juan ballet (1761) and the Furies scene in his Orfeo ed Euridice (1762), in the melodramas of Georg Benda (1774-5) and in such Mozart works as Idomeneo (1781) and Don Giovanni (1787). The impassioned, minor-key symphonies composed by Haydn and others c 1770 may also be seen as a ‘Sturm und Drang’ phenomenon.
Literary Dictionary:
Sturm und Drang |
Sturm und Drang
German Literature Companion:
Sturm und Drang |
Sturm und Drang, ‘Storm and Stress’, denotes a literary movement and a group of writers of the 1770s, otherwise referred to as the Geniezeit. This short-lived phenomenon, which lasted from 1771 to 1778, has no exact parallel in other literatures. Its name, applied to it by later generations, derives from the title of a play, Sturm und Drang (1777), by F. M. Klinger, and the phrase is also used about this time (for a state of mind, not a movement) by G. A. Bürger.
Behind the Sturm und Drang are trends of European thought exemplified in the exaltation of freedom and nature by J.-J. Rousseau, whom J. G. Herder followed, contributing notably a sense of historical evolution and a high estimation of folk poetry. Herder, whose Von deutscher Art und Kunst (1773) operated as a manifesto, and J. G. Hamann supported the cult of genius, which Edward Young expressed in his widely read Conjectures on Original Composition (1759). Other factors in the growth of Sturm und Drang are the lyric vein of Klopstock and the Göttinger Hainbund, Young's Night Thoughts (1742-5), and Hamann's reaction against rationalism. The unmitigated suffering in Gerstenberg's Ugolino (1768), the exaltation of Shakespeare, and the attempts at realism in novel and drama by Lessing (see Emilia Galotti, 1772) and Goethe are also significant. These contributed to the sense of social commitment which the movement evinced.
The Sturm und Drang is unthinkable without the dynamism of Goethe, who, in his Strasburg and Frankfurt days (1770-5), attracted a number of young men who, in different ways, responded to his promptings. His own works of this phase are Götz von Berlichingen mit der eisernen Hand, Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, Clavigo, Stella, the moving scenes of Urfaust (see Faust), a handful of audacious verse satires, and many poems; ‘Prometheus’, ‘Ganymed’, ‘Wanderers Sturmlied’, and ‘Willkommen und Abschied’ are outstanding examples. J. M. R. Lenz, H. L. Wagner, F. Müller, and Klinger were Goethe's satellites. All these had spent their surplus energy by about 1776 and either died, run to seed, or, like Goethe and Klinger, imposed discipline upon their early agitation.
Power and strength, conceived both in emotional and physical terms and designated Kraft, were expressed in extravagant terms, and this verbal explosion influenced the lives of a generation of readers, including Goethe's acquaintances, the Jacobis (see Jacobi, F. H. and J. G.) and the young K. P. Moritz. Musicologists have implied a connection with J. Haydn and Mozart. The subsidence of the Sturm und Drang was followed by a belated manifestation in Schiller's early work (1780-5). This delay is to be ascribed to local conditions in Württemberg.
German literature sustained a decisive and long-enduring impulse from the Sturm und Drang, of which Goethe's own account in Dichtung und Wahrheit (Bk. 13) remains the most important record.
Philosophy Dictionary:
Sturm und Drang |
(German, storm and stress) The first Romantic reaction in Germany against the classical calm of the Enlightenment. The movement, whose leaders included Herder, Goethe and Schiller, emphasized the values of genius, emotional turmoil, and creative enthusiasm. The movement took its name from a play by Maximilian Klinger.
Columbia Encyclopedia:
Sturm und Drang |
Bibliography
See studies by R. Pascal (1953, repr. 1967) and M. O. Kirsten (1969).
Wikipedia:
Sturm und Drang |
Sturm und Drang (German pronunciation: [ʃtʊʁm ʊnt dʁaŋ]) (the conventional translation is "Storm and Stress"; a more literal translation of Drang might be "urge," "longing," or "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 reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism imposed by the Enlightenment and associated esthetic 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 by initiating what would become Weimar Classicism.
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French Neoclassicism, a movement beginning in the early Baroque, and its preoccupation with rational congruity was the principal target of rebellion for adherents of the Sturm und Drang movement. The overt sentimentalism and need to project an objective, anti-personal characterization or image was found to be at odds with the latent desire to express troubling personal emotions and an individual, subjective perspective on reality. It was considered that the Enlightenment ideals of rationalism, empiricism, and universalism had failed to adequately capture the human experience - its emotional extremes and the inherent impurity of personal motivations.
The term Sturm und Drang first appeared as the title to a play by Friedrich Maximilian Klinger, published in 1776, about the unfolding American Revolution, in which the author gives violent expression to difficult emotions and extols individuality and subjectivity over the prevailing order of rationalism. Though it is argued that literature and music associated with Sturm und Drang predate this seminal work, it was from this point that German artists became distinctly self-conscious of a new esthetic. This seemingly spontaneous movement was embraced by a wide array of German authors and composers of the mid to late Classical period.[1]
Sturm und Drang came to be associated with literature or music aimed at frightening the audience or imbuing them with extremes of emotion. The movement soon dovetailed into Weimar Classicism and early Romanticism, whereupon a socio-political concern for greater human freedom from despotism was incorporated along with a religious treatment of all things natural.[2] There is much debate regarding whose work should or should not be included in the canon of Sturm und Drang. One point of view would limit the movement to Goethe, Johann Gottfried Herder, Lenz, and their direct German associates writing works of fiction and/or philosophy between 1770 and the early 1780s.[3] 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 came to view it as a time of premature exuberance which was then abandoned in favor of often conflicting artistic pursuits.[4]
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.[5] 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.
The protagonist in a typical Sturm und Drang stage work, poem, or novel is driven to action - often violent action - not by pursuit of noble means nor by true motives, but by revenge and greed. Goethe's unfinished Prometheus exemplifies this along with the common ambiguity provided by juxtaposing humanistic platitudes with outbursts of irrationality.[6] The literature of Sturm und Drang features an anti-aristocratic slant while seeking to elevate all things humble, natural, or intensely real (especially whatever is painful, tormenting, or frightening).
The story of hopeless love and eventual suicide presented in Goethe's sentimental novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (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. The plot portrays a conflict between two aristocratic brothers, Franz and Karl Moor. Franz is cast 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.
The Classical period music (1750-1800) associated with Sturm und Drang is predominantly written in a minor key to convey difficult or depressing sentiments. The principal themes tend to be angular, with large leaps and unpredictable melodic contours. Tempos and dynamics change rapidly and unpredictably in order to reflect strong changes of emotion. Pulsing rhythms and syncopation are common, as are racing lines in the soprano or alto registers. Writing for string instruments features tremolo and sudden, dramatic dynamic changes and accents.
Musical theater became the meeting place of the literary and musical strands of Sturm und Drang, with the aim of increasing emotional expression in opera. The obligato recitative is a prime example. Here, orchestral accompaniment provides an intense underlay of vivid tone-painting to the solo recitative. Christoph Willibald Gluck's 1761 ballet, Don Juan, heralded the emergence of Sturm und Drang in music; the program notes explicitly indicated that the D minor finale was to evoke fear in the listener. Jean Jacques Rousseau's 1762 play, Pygmalion (first performed in 1770) is a similarly important bridge in its use of underlying instrumental music to convey the mood of the spoken drama. The first example of melodrama, Pygmalion influenced Goethe and other important German literary figures.[7]
Nevertheless, relative to the influence of Sturm und Drang on literature, the influence on musical composition was limited, and many efforts to label music as conforming to this trend are tenuous at best. Vienna, the center of German/Austrian music, was a cosmopolitan city with an international culture; therefore, melodically innovative and expressive works in minor keys by Mozart or Haydn from this period should generally be considered first in the broader context of musical developments taking place throughout Europe. The clearest musical connections to the self-styled Sturm und Drang movement can be found in opera and the early predecessors of program music, such as Haydn's "Farewell" Symphony.
A Sturm und Drang period is often attributed to the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn from the late 1760s to early 1770s. Works during this period often feature a newly impassioned or agitated element; however, Haydn never mentions Sturm und Drang as a motivation for his new compositional style,[8] and there remains an overarching adherence to classical form and motivic unity. Though Haydn may not have been consciously affirming the anti-rational ideals of Sturm und Drang, one can certainly perceive the influence of contemporary trends in musical theatre on his instrumental works during this period.
Mozart's Symphony No. 25 (the 'Little' G-minor symphony, 1773) is one of only two minor-key symphonies by the composer. Beyond the atypical key, the symphony features rhythmic syncopation along with the jagged themes associated with Sturm und Drang. [9] More interesting is the emancipation of the wind instruments in this piece, with the violins yielding to colorful bursts from the oboe and flute. However, it is likely the influence of numerous minor-key works by the Czech composer Johann Baptist Vanhal (a Viennese contemporary and acquaintance of Mozart), rather than a self-conscious adherence to a German literary movement, which is responsible for the harmonic and melodic experiments in the Symphony no. 25.[10]
Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach
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.'[11] Notable artists included Joseph Vernet, Philip James de Loutherbourg, and Henry Fuseli.
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| Sturm und Drang (work) |
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 1994-2009 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Music Encyclopedia. The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Literary Dictionary. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Copyright © Chris Baldick 2001, 2004. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| German Literature Companion. The Oxford Companion to German Literature. Copyright © 1976, 1986, 1997, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Philosophy Dictionary. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Copyright © 1994, 1996, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more |
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