Richard Wagner

A work in which the memory of the storm he weathered after leaving Riga merges with the fate of an accursed seaman, completed during his years of poverty in Paris.

• In the opening of the overture, the wild sea figures traced by horns and strings paint a ship caught in a storm.
• The monologue the Dutchman sings in Act 1 reveals, in a low and heavy voice, the despair of a man bound by a curse.
• The melody of the heroine Senta's ballad rings out again in the full orchestra at the moment of redemption near the end — an early form of the short melody that symbolizes a particular character or emotion (leitmotif).
• The scene in which the chorus of Norwegian sailors alternates with the song of the ghost ship's crew renders in sound the contrast between the living and the dead.

In his years as Dresden Kapellmeister, he poured his own predicament into the story of a knight torn between earthly love and religious salvation.

• The slow, stately melody of the overture's first part is the theme of the Pilgrims' Chorus, which the brass expand into grandeur in the closing section.
• Midway through the overture, where the strings shift to a quick, restless rhythm, the music depicts the grotto of Venus, a realm of worldly pleasure.
• In Act 3, the 'Song to the Evening Star' is sung by the baritone over a gentle accompaniment in the low strings, and it is one of the best-loved solos among opera lovers.

Written while he enjoyed the security of a court Kapellmeister, it left behind the melody most widely used as wedding music today.

• The proud brass rhythms of the Act 3 prelude paint the festive excitement of a wedding feast, and the 'Bridal Chorus' that follows is still played at weddings around the world today as the bride's processional.
• The Act 1 prelude begins very quietly in the highest register of the strings and gradually swells, evoking the approach of the Grail's mysterious light.
• The melody of the scene in which Lohengrin forbids anyone to ask who he is returns in an entirely different mood when his identity is revealed, creating a dramatic contrast.

Born of an impossible love for Mathilde Wesendonck, a married woman, the work opens with a prelude that overturned the harmony of Western music.

• The first chord of the prelude, commonly called the 'Tristan chord,' resolves readily in no direction but keeps slipping onward, giving sound to a longing that is never fulfilled, and it is one of the most analyzed chords among musicologists.
• In the Act II love scene by night, the two lovers' melodies twine around each other and gradually slow, until an intrusion from outside abruptly cuts them off, a rupture that foreshadows the fate of the pair.
• The closing 'Isolde's Liebestod' is the moment when the prelude's unresolved chord at last resolves into a full consonance, culminating in a long melody that the soprano and orchestra build together, climbing step by step from low notes to high (ascending).

A passage from the four-part cycle drawn from Norse mythology, it lies at the heart of the vast conception that led to the building of the Bayreuth theater.

• The Valkyrie theme, cried out by the brass, depicts the warrior maidens riding across the sky to gather the souls of the fallen, and its frequent use in film trailers has made it the best known of all Wagner's melodies.
• The strings' rapid, clipped rhythm imitates the sound of hooves, and how roughly or how reservedly each conductor drives it becomes the crossroads of interpretation.
• The high passage the eight Valkyries cry out in turn is notorious among singers, said to be singable only by those who husband their stamina throughout the long performance.

A comedy written as if to catch his breath between parts of the Ring cycle, it holds his thoughts on the conflict between tradition and innovation.

• The stately march theme at the opening of the overture portrays the dignity of the medieval craft guilds.
• A passage in the middle, where several voices pile up different themes at once, shows the finesse of the technique of weaving several melodies together simultaneously (counterpoint).
• In the latter part, where trumpets and woodwinds trade the themes back and forth as they build, it feels like hearing an ensemble in which many people sing different songs at once until they finally fall into one.

A private piece, secretly prepared for his family alone and performed on the staircase on the morning of his wife Cosima's birthday.

• The opening, which begins with a melody as if the strings were quietly rocking a child to sleep, has the air of a lullaby hummed beside a cradle.
• The melody the horn sings in the middle is tied to Siegfried's music in the Ring cycle, showing that the vast stage music and this intimate domestic moment grew from the same root.
• One of the few Wagner works written not for the opera house but for a small, chamber-sized ensemble, it carries a tender texture quite unlike his other music.

His last music drama, it borrows the legend of the Holy Grail to speak of redemption and compassion, revealing an old age that stands in a different place from his revolutionary youth.

• At the very start of the prelude, the melody the strings trace so low and slow is the theme symbolizing the Eucharist, into which the composer is said to have put 'love, faith, hope.'
• The chords the brass slowly piles up evoke the solemn atmosphere of the Grail knights, drawing the whole hall into a hushed silence.
• Its religious coloring is so strong that Wagner wished this work alone never to be performed outside the Bayreuth theater, and it is often heard in a devout atmosphere quite unlike that of his other works.