- Focus in the Autumn Semester: «Above all peaks is peace» – setting off into the Romantic era
- Focus in the spring semester: «Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome» – retreat into the Biedermeier era
Pushing and shoving are obviously attributes that are particularly characteristic of youth. This was no different in the 18th century than it is today. Accordingly, it was the young generation of aspiring writers who rebelled from the 1760s onwards. Of course, they do not cling to streets, but their resistance is no less vehement and momentous for the society of the time. After all, Goethe's Werther prompts numerous readers to follow their new idol and commit suicide.
But what do people in the land of poets and thinkers actually oppose? Unlike the much more radical France, Germany chooses the path of a rational enlightenment. Kant points out a peaceful path that is supposed to lead people out of immaturity through the education of their intellect. But it is precisely this intellectual emphasis that arouses resistance among the young contemporaries, who now clearly prefer emotion to reason and want to surrender unrestrainedly to their feelings - and in doing so, they offend large sections of the population, guardians of rules and morals, traditionalists and the church. Goethe and Schiller are only the most prominent representatives of this movement; the young savages were numerous and well organised in the German-speaking world.
And the music? Joseph Haydn famously wrote numerous "Sturm und Drang symphonies". But he himself would probably never have described these works as such within his complex symphonic oeuvre; posterity has (as so often) helped things along. But was Haydn really a "Sturm und Drang" (storm and stress) composer? Papa Haydn? Or the "great" Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel, who is also often said to have been a storming and pushing composer, especially since he was clearly a so-called "original genius". Yet it is precisely the younger generation (which not only invented this term but also proclaims it with all verve as a condition for true art) that would like to deny him this supposed title of honour. He saw himself very much as an original genius, but the 60-year-old certainly did not want to wear this distinction in the sense of a horde of youthful rebels:inside. It obviously doesn't seem to be as simple as posterity would like it to be!
Certainly, some composers also want to free themselves from rational rules and primarily use their emotions. They also use a language that some of their contemporaries find vulgar, but at the same time extremely electrifying. But what then constitutes this fine line between enlightenment and Sturm und Drang?
The fact is that youth does not last forever. Apart from the fact that many members of the young generation of writers addressed died early, it can be observed above all that the others soon turn away from their youthful sins. In later years, Goethe would rather be addressed for Faust than for Werther. It is no different with the musicians: They too calm down with age and point the way to a whole new future. Just like a Goethe, Joseph Haydn will later distance himself from this phase of his life, which was apparently hopeless from a compositional point of view. As they grew older, these two greats opened the horizon to a forward-looking world with a whole new language: the Weimar/Viennese classical period was born.
Perhaps it is precisely this epoch they lived through in their youth that, despite their undoubted wisdom in old age, allows an occasional tendency towards the crude to shine through in both artists, even in the classicist spheres?
In the academic year 2023/24, we will explore this multi-faceted departure into classical realms with the help of more or less stormy examples and try to understand the complexity of this torn epoch in rudimentary ways.
One of the most fascinating aspects of the reception of Friedrich's art is the dispute over its interpretation, which continues to this day. Is it political art? Religious? Or rather the pictorial interpretation of Kant's or Schiller's theory of the sublime? Is it about the mysticism of geometry? Or is it ‘simply’ landscape painting? We do not know! And probably not only because more than 200 years separate us from his art and we are completely different people, in a completely different world than the painter and his contemporaries, but perhaps simply because the enigmatic, mysterious, indefinable is a special characteristic, not only of Caspar David Friedrich, but of the entire Romantic era. A ‘voice from afar’ simply does not want to be graspable.
But perhaps Friedrich's painting simply reflects what great art is all about: it does not reveal its ultimate secret.
In the 2024/25 academic year, we want to at least try to approach this mystery. We want to use Friedrich's art to get closer to the Romantic era, not only in our thoughts but also in our musical practice, and attempt to overcome the temporal discrepancy to our grandparents and great-grandparents, which is impossible from the outset.
Perhaps the most important realisation of historical performance practice is the same "Time is a strange thing."