How to Use adagio in a Sentence

adagio

noun
  • This should be a great showcase, not just for their athleticism but for their strength in adagio.
    — Allan Ulrich, San Francisco Chronicle, 15 Jan. 2018
  • That’s how Beethoven said he was inspired to write the Molto adagio movement of Op.
    — Daniel J. Wakin, New York Times, 4 Feb. 2020
  • The outer movements are nervy and restless, never settling, set against a still, melancholy adagio.
    — E.c., The Economist, 21 May 2020
  • In one sequence, which goes on as long as a Mahler adagio, Ronnie’s genitals get trapped in the slats of a sun bed.
    — Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 5 June 2017
  • The adagio movement had a lovely softness and fine balance between strings and woodwinds; and the third movement was kept light, lithe and lucid.
    — Washington Post, 21 Jan. 2022
  • The slow opening movement, the upbeat and lively second and third movements, and then the sinking into an adagio, a slow repose.
    — Chicago Tribune, chicagotribune.com, 2 June 2018
  • The following night, his typical, upbeat confidence was again adagio.
    — Alejandro Varela, Harper's magazine, 16 Sep. 2019
  • The adagio begins with muted warmth in the strings, which Reinhardt used to highlight the winds’ unity of timbre and intonation.
    — Luke Schulze, San Diego Union-Tribune, 9 May 2022
  • But the adagio third movement, the symphony’s centerpiece, proved somewhat disappointing on this night.
    — Howard Reich, chicagotribune.com, 22 Oct. 2019
  • And while Cox and Grimaud were in sync for most of the movement, their dynamics diverged toward the adagio’s end — both landing at slightly different angles.
    — Washington Post, 8 Apr. 2022
  • There’s actually a story about the music for The Nutcracker adagio, which would seem to belie its emotional power—that it was composed on a bet.
    — Leilah Bernstein, Los Angeles Magazine, 16 June 2017
  • Beethoven's dramatic gestures registered without rhetorical excess, the adagio was a rapt dialogue between the piano and woodwinds, and the finale danced with rhythmic playfulness.
    — John Von Rhein, chicagotribune.com, 26 July 2017
  • In Perlman’s hands, the adagio movement spoke with unmistakable melodic clarity and moments of intimacy and stillness not easily achieved in an outdoor setting.
    — Howard Reich, chicagotribune.com, 18 Aug. 2019
  • The ascending trills in the cadenza of the adagio of the Brahms first piano concerto, each joined by the next and then prolonged with a touch of the pedal—just a little, nothing showy—had a resonance like the shimmering of the universe.
    — The Economist, 15 Aug. 2020
  • This middle movement follows an A-B-A ternary structure where the opening material is a lyrical adagio and the contrasting middle section presents more rhythmic, scherzo-like music.
    — Jessica Rudman, courant.com, 7 Dec. 2019
  • Anodyne outer movements enclosed a sluggish adagio where glimmers of Lupu's Beethoven style at its best shone through — warmly rounded tone, supple phrasing and, above all, sensitive attention to the soft end of the dynamic spectrum.
    — John Von Rhein, chicagotribune.com, 28 Apr. 2017
  • But Drucker and Watkins sustained marvelous tension in the opening adagio movement, highlighting harmonic shifts toward the end that signal the waking Romanticism in Beethoven’s later years.
    — Michael Andor Brodeur, Washington Post, 11 Dec. 2022
  • The work is a showcase for the first violinist, and Edward Dusinberre’s virtuosity was notable from the start, particularly in the adagio where his cascading melodies were elegantly executed with the lightest of touch.
    — Jonathan Nussman, San Diego Union-Tribune, 17 Oct. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'adagio.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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