[2] The empfindsamer Stil is similar to and often considered a dialect of the international galant style, which is marked by simple homophonic textures (a single, clear melody, supported by subordinate chordal accompaniment) and periodic melodic phrases.
[3][4] However, unlike the broader galant style, empfindsamer Stil tends to avoid lavish ornamentation.
[3] The dramatic fluidity that was a goal of the empfindsamer Stil has encouraged historians to view mid-century Empfindsamkeit as a slightly earlier parallel to the showier and stormier phase called Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) that emerged around 1770.
[1] These two trends are together regarded as "pre-Romantic" manifestations, because of their emphasis on features such as extreme expressive contrasts with disruptive incursions, instability of key, sudden changes of register, dynamic contrast, and exciting orchestral effects, all of which are atypical of musical classicism as practiced in the second half of the eighteenth century.
Traits characteristic for composers of this school are a particular fondness for Adagio movements and precise attention to ornaments and dynamics,[6] as well as the liberal use of appoggiaturas ("sigh" figures) and frequent melodic and harmonic chromaticism.