through-composed

American  

[throo-kuhm-pohzd] / ˈθru kəmˈpoʊzd /

adjective

1. having different music for each verse.

   a through-composed song.

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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

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Example Sentences

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

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

Follow-up “Relativity Suite” is just as ambitious, a through-composed work weaving strands of Turkish and South Asian music with Chinese zither, Malian donso ngoni and Indian tambura.

From Washington Post • Apr. 29, 2021

If I have any qualm about Lloyd Webber’s oeuvre, it is to do with his faith in the through-composed score.

From The Guardian • Mar. 21, 2018

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