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

---

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 also have fond memories of a Schoenberg Ensemble album that featured John Adams conducting Ellington’s spellbinding, through-composed “The Tattooed Bride” alongside his own “Scratchband.”

From New York Times • Mar. 25, 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