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through-composed

American  
[throo-kuhm-pohzd] / ˈθru kəmˈpoʊzd /

adjective

  1. having different music for each verse.

    a through-composed song.


through-composed British  

adjective

  1. music of or relating to a song in stanzaic form, in which different music is provided for each stanza Compare strophic

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The suite is mostly through-composed, yet its harmonic palette invites creativity—“like a crayon box,” Mr. Ross told me.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 27, 2025

Schumann’s nontraditional, through-composed form, seamless without breaks between movements, Reich has noted, bears the influence of Mendelssohn’s First Piano Concerto.

From New York Times • Oct. 27, 2022

I wrote about how much I loved their work and how right it was for “Cyrano”; I wrote that I wanted to create a through-composed stripped-down cinematic musical without a big nose.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 19, 2022

“Mr. Bolling’s compositional strategy involves giving his classical soloist a through-composed part, written in a style replete with Baroque and classical gestures and allusions to the featured instrument’s repertory and idiomatic uses,” Kozinn wrote.

From Washington Post • Dec. 31, 2020

Though they were blown away by what he was attempting, very few followed his example into through-composed music drama, except the one-hit-wonder German composer of the opera Hansel and Gretel, Engelbert Humperdinck.

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall

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