song cycle

American

noun

a group of art songs that are usually all by the same poet and composer and have a unifying subject or idea.

song cycle British

noun

any of several groups of songs written by composers during and after the Romantic period, each series employing texts, usually by one poet, relating a story or grouped around a central motif

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of song cycle

First recorded in 1895–1900

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Complementing the Bowl’s Independence Day program is a song cycle of Shaina Taub’s Tony-winning musical “Suffs,” which Umber said examines America’s 250th anniversary, “including that extraordinary female point of view.”

From Los Angeles Times

It’s an exhortation and an anthem — “Be the rain you remember falling” — the emotional peak of a song cycle about a girl named Sun Green who’s trying to save the Earth.

From Salon

The set opened with a full run of “Seven Psalms,” a short yet profound song cycle in which a dense, ornamental acoustic guitar figure recurs over several songs in an intimate valediction.

From Los Angeles Times

With Wilson on stage, seated at a piano, and Parks in the audience, the crowd roared thunderously as a song cycle that had become nearly mythical in its absence was finally unveiled.

From Los Angeles Times

A mutual friend connected him to Grant Gershon, artistic director of the Master Chorale, and Aitken proposed creating a song cycle.

From Los Angeles Times

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023