GuitarBizarre

Tristan und Isolde was dependent primarily on Wagner's concept of Gezamptkunstwerke (Total artwork, Wagner demanded absolute control over all elements of his operas, from music through to dancing to backdrops and even costume design), made extensive use of Idee fixe (the use of a particular amount of musical content, recontextualised repeatedly, to represent a given character or element in a work considered to be representative of events or story) and also, Wagner's use of nontonal harmony, including the self-explanatorily titled tristan chord, which is a half diminished 7th in second inversion, was noted for being an early, and surprisingly successful attempt, at shrugging off the percieved chains and limitations of the Germanic Harmonic tradition exemplified by Bach and Mozart. (Although there are still sections that fall back on established chord patterns typified by germanic harmony such as a perfect cadence of I IV V in the prelude, which is set up nontonally but resolves in the traditional manner, passing notes and chorale-esque movement included)

All of this was not necessarily by virtue of an adherence to any traditional structure. Indeed, any given "piece" of Wagner, such as Ride Of The Valkyries, is in fact a section of a larger work, often referred to as "Bleeding chunks of Wagner" as they were never intended to be removed from context. Any structure evident in a small piece of Wagner's work is illusory, likely not foreshawdowed in the larger portion of the work from which it comes, unless apportioned to idee fixe, or indeed, Strum und drang.

As for the outpouring of religious music, a religious inspiration doesn't necessarily imply that the work is made in order to worship god. And it doesn't follow that an ideology based on allowing god to work through you, using you as a vessel, would result in god praising or demanding worship for HIM/HER/ITSELF. The logic that implies religious works would have been the result of such a thought doesn't hold water.

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