The Gustavian Shifts: Culture, Music and Affectivity under the Reign of Gustav III
The research shows that two affective shifts took place in the Gustavian culture under the reign of Gustav III. During the 1770s and 1780s, a nobiliary sensibility was replaced by a bourgeoise sentimentality, followed by a fortifying reaction in the late 1780s.
Opera is central to the study, being the king’s vehicle for a pervasive cultural renewal, with the goal to achieve the formation of a Swedish nation. Repercussions can be discerned on the Gustavian literature, visual arts, spoken drama and architecture – and in gardening, too. The renewal appeared in a society where the king gave the lower estates power at the cost of the nobility and where a market for the arts emerged.
The world of the Gustavian era is disclosed in this way. Hereby, a new approach to the period is achieved, where Gustavian culture is treated as an important part of the late eighteenth-century culture of Europe, instead of being peripheral.
The aim of the research is to elucidate the affective import on cultural and social change. Affectivity is therefore not seen as the outgrowth of historical and societal change, but as a dimension which can be fundamental to these events. The concept of patheme – the ground of affectivity – is crucial to this elucidation of the Gustavian culture.
Opera is central to the study, being the king’s vehicle for a pervasive cultural renewal, with the goal to achieve the formation of a Swedish nation. Repercussions can be discerned on the Gustavian literature, visual arts, spoken drama and architecture – and in gardening, too. The renewal appeared in a society where the king gave the lower estates power at the cost of the nobility and where a market for the arts emerged.
The world of the Gustavian era is disclosed in this way. Hereby, a new approach to the period is achieved, where Gustavian culture is treated as an important part of the late eighteenth-century culture of Europe, instead of being peripheral.
The aim of the research is to elucidate the affective import on cultural and social change. Affectivity is therefore not seen as the outgrowth of historical and societal change, but as a dimension which can be fundamental to these events. The concept of patheme – the ground of affectivity – is crucial to this elucidation of the Gustavian culture.
Final report
The project ‘The Gustavian Shifts: Culture, Music and Affectivity under the Reign of Gustav III’ had the completion of a monograph as its main objective. This monograph shows how two affective shifts occurred in the higher culture of Sweden during the years 1771–1792. The culture of sensibility dominated by the nobility during the late Age of Liberty (Frihetstiden) was transformed into the sentimentalism of the bourgeoisie in the beginning of the period studied by me, which was followed by a restrictive reaction during the later years of the 1780s. The manifestations of these two shifts are first of all traced in opera, the art form that Gustav III chose as the first field for his ‘cultural revolution’ with a nationalistic inclination. As an all-embracing art form, opera also contained a paradigm for poetry, the visual arts, theatre, instrumental music, architecture and – even – that which we with a modern term may call landscape architecture.
As a parallel to these changes in the arts, the affective shifts were also manifested in society. A gradual displacement of power from the nobility to the bourgeoisie is followed by the strengthened royal power that also benefits the two lower estates, especially the peasantry. The relation between people and environment is also sentimentalised during the same period. All this leads in the monograph to the formulation and corroboration of the concept of patheme, the ‘disposing-configuring grounding of affectivity’. Affectivity is here understood as world disclosure, related to both orders of power and society, and to the spheres of aesthetics, economy and science. The changes in Gustavian culture are elucidated when they are understood as different configurations of the disposition.
This project had been preceded by a longer research project, which also was financed by the Riksbankens jubileumsfond. Through earlier articles from that project, revisions of preliminary book chapters and new texts, the monograph has reached its complete form. Two journeys during the sabbatical have made it possible for me to fulfil earlier plans.
I have focused on the following activities during the sabbatical:
1) A visit to Treviso and its Biblioteca comunale made possible a study of the letters by abbé Domenico Michelessi (an influential person concerning Gustav III’s involvement in opera and of great impact on the European understanding of the king’s coup d’état 1772), written before and during his stay in Sweden. This study led to a new understanding of Michelessi, who by Swedish historians have been seen as a mere propagandist in the service of the king. When his book on Francesco Algarotti (among many other things author of the influential Saggio sopra l’opera in musica, published in 1755), his own reflections on aesthetics and politics as well as his actions during and after the coup d’état are put to the fore, it becomes clear that he was key figure in the events that took place during the early 1770s.
2) I show that the grand style sought after in opera, with its main examples in Gustaf Wasa (music by Johann Gottlieb Naumann to Johan Henric Kellgren’s versification of Gustav III’s prose drafts) and Æneas i Carthago (music by Joseph Martin Kraus to a libretto by the same co-authors), had equivalents in other arts. That happened in architecture when construction began of the never completed palace in the Haga Park, to which Louis Jean Desprez – who had been recruited as a set designer for the opera during Gustav III’s journey to Italy – and the king himself drew the plans. Without being an outspoken work in the grand style, repercussions of the tendencies of transgression and ensuing reaction can be found in the second version of Skördarne (1796), a monument of the Gustavian era rendering the cultivation, culture, commerce and history of Sweden in the form of a long descriptive poem. A last case is Kraus’s transformation of the Sturm und Drang symphony in C-sharp minor (1782) into the grand style of the C-minor symphony (1783).
3) The investigation of the libretto as a ‘career ladder’ in Stockholm of the 1770s and 1780s has been enriched. The result is a critical qualification of Bo Bennich-Björkman’s still often used concept of ‘the author in office’ and a better understanding of the literary careers for poets such as Kellgren, Bengt Lidner, and Gudmund Jöran Adlerbeth.
4) An article has been prepared on Gustav III’s coup d’état 1772 from the perspective of the affective ground of political decision. It will be submitted to the special issue on ‘Decisione/Entscheidung’ of the Italian open-access journal Studi di estetica, to be published in Autumn 2025.
5) The journeys to Italy, first of all the destinations Naples and Rome, have made possible visits to the sites which became decisive for Swedish art production after Gustav III’s Italian journey. It has been of great advantage for the monograph.
Other results of the project are Erasmus agreements between Södertörn University and the University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’ for students and teachers. I have made a presentation of my research in a lecture held at the University of Naples ‘l’Orientale’ (Riforma e rivoluzione: Il saggio sull’ opera lirica di Francesco Algarotti e le sue conseguenze), invited by professor Tiziana Pangrazi. During Autumn, I also participated in a colloquium in professor Tonino Griffero’s series Sensibilia at the University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’ (The king’s speeches: Decisions during the revolution in Sweden 1772). I further held a seminar for doctoral students in Naples with the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’ as organiser (Musical affectivity as a historical problem/possibility). The contacts with scholars in Italy have also been part of the endeavours to found a European network for the aesthetics of music. Finally, an essay on Oxenstierna's Skördarne is to be sent for publication in the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.
As a parallel to these changes in the arts, the affective shifts were also manifested in society. A gradual displacement of power from the nobility to the bourgeoisie is followed by the strengthened royal power that also benefits the two lower estates, especially the peasantry. The relation between people and environment is also sentimentalised during the same period. All this leads in the monograph to the formulation and corroboration of the concept of patheme, the ‘disposing-configuring grounding of affectivity’. Affectivity is here understood as world disclosure, related to both orders of power and society, and to the spheres of aesthetics, economy and science. The changes in Gustavian culture are elucidated when they are understood as different configurations of the disposition.
This project had been preceded by a longer research project, which also was financed by the Riksbankens jubileumsfond. Through earlier articles from that project, revisions of preliminary book chapters and new texts, the monograph has reached its complete form. Two journeys during the sabbatical have made it possible for me to fulfil earlier plans.
I have focused on the following activities during the sabbatical:
1) A visit to Treviso and its Biblioteca comunale made possible a study of the letters by abbé Domenico Michelessi (an influential person concerning Gustav III’s involvement in opera and of great impact on the European understanding of the king’s coup d’état 1772), written before and during his stay in Sweden. This study led to a new understanding of Michelessi, who by Swedish historians have been seen as a mere propagandist in the service of the king. When his book on Francesco Algarotti (among many other things author of the influential Saggio sopra l’opera in musica, published in 1755), his own reflections on aesthetics and politics as well as his actions during and after the coup d’état are put to the fore, it becomes clear that he was key figure in the events that took place during the early 1770s.
2) I show that the grand style sought after in opera, with its main examples in Gustaf Wasa (music by Johann Gottlieb Naumann to Johan Henric Kellgren’s versification of Gustav III’s prose drafts) and Æneas i Carthago (music by Joseph Martin Kraus to a libretto by the same co-authors), had equivalents in other arts. That happened in architecture when construction began of the never completed palace in the Haga Park, to which Louis Jean Desprez – who had been recruited as a set designer for the opera during Gustav III’s journey to Italy – and the king himself drew the plans. Without being an outspoken work in the grand style, repercussions of the tendencies of transgression and ensuing reaction can be found in the second version of Skördarne (1796), a monument of the Gustavian era rendering the cultivation, culture, commerce and history of Sweden in the form of a long descriptive poem. A last case is Kraus’s transformation of the Sturm und Drang symphony in C-sharp minor (1782) into the grand style of the C-minor symphony (1783).
3) The investigation of the libretto as a ‘career ladder’ in Stockholm of the 1770s and 1780s has been enriched. The result is a critical qualification of Bo Bennich-Björkman’s still often used concept of ‘the author in office’ and a better understanding of the literary careers for poets such as Kellgren, Bengt Lidner, and Gudmund Jöran Adlerbeth.
4) An article has been prepared on Gustav III’s coup d’état 1772 from the perspective of the affective ground of political decision. It will be submitted to the special issue on ‘Decisione/Entscheidung’ of the Italian open-access journal Studi di estetica, to be published in Autumn 2025.
5) The journeys to Italy, first of all the destinations Naples and Rome, have made possible visits to the sites which became decisive for Swedish art production after Gustav III’s Italian journey. It has been of great advantage for the monograph.
Other results of the project are Erasmus agreements between Södertörn University and the University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’ for students and teachers. I have made a presentation of my research in a lecture held at the University of Naples ‘l’Orientale’ (Riforma e rivoluzione: Il saggio sull’ opera lirica di Francesco Algarotti e le sue conseguenze), invited by professor Tiziana Pangrazi. During Autumn, I also participated in a colloquium in professor Tonino Griffero’s series Sensibilia at the University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’ (The king’s speeches: Decisions during the revolution in Sweden 1772). I further held a seminar for doctoral students in Naples with the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’ as organiser (Musical affectivity as a historical problem/possibility). The contacts with scholars in Italy have also been part of the endeavours to found a European network for the aesthetics of music. Finally, an essay on Oxenstierna's Skördarne is to be sent for publication in the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.