as to serve the ends of dramatic expression, and all of his most important compositions were composed for the theater. Particularly in Tannhauser, Wagner brilliantly adapted the substance of the German Romantic libretto to the framework of grand opera. The music evoked the opposite worlds of sin and blessedness with great emotional fervor and a luxuriant harmony and color. The Pilgrim's Chorus from this opera contains what is perhaps Wagner's most popular and widely known melody. Fatefully, despite his musical successes, things took a bad turn for Wagner when, in 1848, he was caught up in political revolution, and the next year he fled to Weimar where Franz Liszt helped him. Later he fled to Switzerland and France. Lohengrin was first performed under the direction of Franz Liszt at Weimar in 1850, and it is the last of Wagner's works that he ever referred to as an "opera." Lohengrin embodies several changes prophetic of the Music Dramas that were to follow it. The story comes from medieval legend, but Wagner's treatment is generalized and symbolic. The technique of recurring themes was further developed, particularly with respect to the motives associated with Lohengrin and the Grail. Using Weber's Der Freischtz as a model to a certain extent, Wagner used tonality with his characters to help organize both the drama and the music: Lohengrin's key is A Major, Elsa's A-Flat or E-Flat, and the key for the evil personages is F-Sharp minor. Wagner's use of varying keys in a symbolic manner greatly heightens the dramatic effect of the action on stage as well as the music itself. In Zurich during his exile of 1850, Wagner wrote his ferociously anti-semitic tract: Jewishness In Music. In addition, he completed his basic statement on musical theater, Opera and Drama. Wagner began sketching the text and music for a series of monumental operas based on the Nordic and Germanic myths. By 1853 the texts for this four-night cycle of Music Dra...
