Through-composed

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Through-composed describes music which is relatively continuous, non-sectional, and/or non-repetitive.

A song is said to be through-composed if it has different music for each stanza of the lyrics. It is opposed to strophic form, in which each stanza is set to the same music.

Sometimes the German durchkomponiert is used to indicate the same concept.

Many examples of this form can be found in Schubert's "Lieder" where the words of a poem are set to music, and each line is different.

The term is also applied to opera and other dramatic works involving music, to indicate the extent of music (as opposed to recitative and dialogue). For example the musicals of Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber have been involved in a modern trend towards through-composed works, rather than collections of songs. In musical theater, works with no spoken dialogue, such as Les Miserables are usually referred to by the term "sung-through" even though this is technically inaccurate as there are obviously places where there is no singing, but instead only orchestral music.

A work composed chronologically (from the beginning of the piece to the end, in order) without a precompositional formal plan is also through-composed.

A song type, what the Germans call durchkomponiert, or through composed, proceeds from beginning to end, without repetitions of whole sections. Here the music follows the story line, changing according to the text. This makes it possible for the composer to mirror every shade of meaning in the words.