passage work

British  

noun

1. music scales, runs, etc, in a piece of music which have no structural significance but provide an opportunity for virtuoso display

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Example Sentences

Once pupils had absorbed each individual question, they had an average of 49 seconds per question to scan back through the relevant passage, work out their answer and write it down.

From BBC • May 18, 2023

Chang, on the other hand, is prone to go her own way and occasionally covered her colleagues, especially when the piano part called for brilliant passage work.

From Washington Post • Feb. 6, 2017

In the aria “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!” she dispatched the darting runs and passage work with agile technique.

From New York Times • Dec. 21, 2012

The allegro passage work is more muscled than brilliant; where it should be bold it thumps.

From Time Magazine Archive

Without having the effective passage work of Thalberg, Liszt or Chopin, or the bold originality of Schumann, Mendelssohn was an extremely original and pleasing pianoforte writer.

From A Popular History of the Art of Music From the Earliest Times Until the Present by Mathews, W. S. B. (William Smythe Babcock)