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Through-composed music is music which is relatively continous, 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 thing.
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.
A work composed chronologically (from the beginning of the piece to the end, in order) without a pre-compositional formal plan is also through-composed.
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