In a reflection of the political turmoil of the first half of the nineteenth century, opera composers in Denmark consciously and purposely worked to develop a national dramaturgy that was anti-German. Inspired by new collections of Danish folk music published between 1812 and 1842, these composers created a new musical language by synthesizing elements that had been an intermittent part of the vocabulary of Danish theater music as far back as 1779. Among these characteristics are a simple, lyrical, and mainly syllabic vocal line; gently dotted 6/8 rhythms; a strong modal inflection of otherwise classical harmony; a reliance on ballad and folksong material; an eschewing of any sort of orchestral word-painting; and a particular type of rhythmic cadence unique to Scandinavia. Ironically, the majority of musicians working in Denmark were German themselves; they had simply moved to Copenhagen, learned the new language, and tried to accommodate the taste of their new audience. The gradual emergence of genuinely Danish opera offers a model of the ways in which a body of work designed for public consumption helped define a country's growing sense of nationalism in the Romantic era.