Through-composed music is relatively continuous, non-section

Section (music)

In music, a section is "a complete, but not independent musical idea". Types of sections include the introduction or intro, exposition, recapitulation, verse, chorus or refrain, conclusion, coda or outro, fadeout, bridge or interlude...

al, and/or non-repetitive

Repetition (music)

Repetition is important in music, where sounds or sequences are often repeated. One often stated idea is that repetition should be in balance with the initial statements and variations in a piece. It may be called restatement, such as the restatement of a theme...

. A song

Song

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

 is said to be through-composed if it has different music for each stanza

Stanza

In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. In modern poetry, the term is often equivalent with strophe; in popular vocal music, a stanza is typically referred to as a "verse"...

 of the lyrics

Lyrics

Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...

. This is in contrast to strophic form

Strophic form

Strophic form is the simplest and most durable of musical forms, elaborating a piece of music by repetition of a single formal section. This may be analyzed as "A A A..."...

, in which each stanza is set to the same music. Sometimes the German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 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, and "Der Erlkönig" (The Erl-King), in which the setting proceeds to a different musical arrangement for each new stanza and whenever the piece comes to each character, the character portrays its own voice register and tonality. Also Haydn's 'Farewell Symphony'.

"Happiness Is a Warm Gun

Happiness Is a Warm Gun

"Happiness Is a Warm Gun" is a song by The Beatles, featured on the eponymous double-disc album The Beatles, also known as The White Album...

", by The Beatles

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

, is an example of this form's application in popular music. No section of Ary Barroso

Ary Barroso

Ary Barroso was a Brazilian composer, pianist, soccer commentator, and talent-show host on radio and TV...

's 1939 samba "Brazil

Aquarela do Brasil

"Aquarela do Brasil" , known in the English-speaking world simply as "Brazil", is one of the most famous Brazilian songs of all time, written by Ary Barroso in 1939.-Background and composition:...

" repeats; however, a second set of lyrics in Portuguese allows the melody to be sung through twice.

The term is also applied to opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 and other dramatic works involving music, to indicate the extent of music (as opposed to recitative

Recitative

Recitative , also known by its Italian name "recitativo" , is a style of delivery in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms of ordinary speech...

 and dialogue

Dialogue

Dialogue is a literary and theatrical form consisting of a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people....

). For example the musicals of Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...

 and Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...

 have been part of a modern trend towards through-composed works, rather than collections of songs. In musical theater, works with no spoken dialogue, such as Les Misérables

Les Misérables (musical)

Les Misérables , colloquially known as Les Mis or Les Miz , is a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg, based on the novel of the same name by Victor Hugo....

are usually referred to by the term "through-sung

Sung-through

Sung-through refers to a musical or opera with no spoken dialogue, except perhaps for some occasional lines included in some part of a song, but never as stand-alone dialogue...

."

A work composed chronologically (from the beginning of the piece to the end, in order) without a precompositional

Precompositional

In music, precompositional decisions are those decisions which a composer decides upon before or while beginning to create a composition. These limits may be given to the composer, such as the length or style needed, or entirely decided by the composer....

formal plan is also through-composed.