How to Use cadenza in a Sentence

cadenza

noun
  • And parts of the cadenza sounded more hammered out than played.
    — Dallas News, 25 June 2022
  • Here, the clarinet finishes the thought in a playful cadenza.
    — Madeleine Kearns, National Review, 4 Apr. 2020
  • Her first-movement cadenza was a dance that had one foot in an aristocratic court and the other in the country.
    — Zachary Woolfe, New York Times, 14 Feb. 2020
  • Only a solitary cello is left, plucking out a cadenza full of stammers and silence.
    — Justin Davidson, Vulture, 15 Apr. 2021
  • Timpani are very much a partner in the long first movement cadenza, taking off from their concerto-opening strokes.
    — Dallas News, 7 Jan. 2023
  • Flute then clarinet take solos, until later, when two flutes play a double cadenza that’s later echoed by twin clarinets.
    — Hannah Edgar, chicagotribune.com, 21 Aug. 2021
  • But Davis’ cadenza was not so much a jazz statement as a linkage between jazz and its antecedents in ancient Africa.
    — Howard Reich, chicagotribune.com, 15 June 2018
  • One of those lessons was about the very first note of the violin — a wide open G that cracks open like first light before soaring into a cresting cadenza.
    — Washington Post, 15 Sep. 2021
  • The first-movement cadenza was Fritz Kreisler’s rather extravagant one.
    — Scott Cantrell, Dallas News, 9 Feb. 2020
  • The longest of Beethoven’s three optional cadenzas outstayed its welcome.
    — Scott Cantrell, Dallas News, 5 Jan. 2020
  • The first-movement cadenza continued in that vein (along with unexpected flashes of humor) but with more richness to come.
    — David Patrick Stearns, Philly.com, 18 May 2018
  • Either way, Potter gave listeners a great deal to ponder in the first of several titanic cadenzas.
    — Howard Reich, chicagotribune.com, 2 June 2017
  • Such was the creativity of this cadenza – with its stop-start rhythms, piercing high notes and ferocious sense of swing – that some band members turned around to watch Marsalis at work.
    — Howard Reich, chicagotribune.com, 16 Nov. 2019
  • His fourth-movement cadenza was a deeply involving journey from reflection to anxiety attack.
    — Rob Hubbard, Star Tribune, 17 Apr. 2021
  • Unusually cast in two movements, slow then fast, with a cadenza in the middle, the concerto calls for a supporting ensemble of strings, piano and harp.
    — Dallas News, 9 Nov. 2022
  • The heart of the second cadenza is an imperious elaboration of the suave, sauntering theme with which the concerto begins.
    — Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 9 Jan. 2017
  • There's a little 13-second pocket — called a cadenza — where freestyle vocal gymnastics are encouraged.
    — Mark Kennedy, USA TODAY, 25 Apr. 2020
  • The central cadenza is a jagged maze of quick-moving double stops, and Benedetti scaled its mountains and valleys in economical, fluid gestures.
    — Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 20 Jan. 2023
  • Just as the flowing notes grew tiresome, a reflective flute cadenza, answered by shuddering strings and melancholy vibraphone, provided a respite.
    — Washington Post, 3 Dec. 2019
  • The pianist could’ve been more judicious with rubato around Grieg’s crashing chords, especially in the first movement cadenza.
    — Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 14 July 2019
  • The cadenza, intended to show off my mastery of technique in harmonic fireworks, ended on a wildly dissonant F#.
    — Samuel Ernest, Longreads, 2 May 2023
  • Her cadenza toward the close of the first movement was a feat of control and abandon, a stunning balance of the explosive and expressive — especially its soft landing.
    — Washington Post, 1 Oct. 2021
  • Orliński’s cadenza began on an A, his voice rising like a peal of bells up to a high F and then descending, with a trill, to the F an octave lower.
    — Rebecca Mead, The New Yorker, 15 July 2019
  • The cadenza in the first movement was arrestingly rhapsodic, and the second movement was gorgeously shaped and juicy with portamento.
    — Hannah Edgar, Chicago Tribune, 29 Apr. 2022
  • Before the exuberant cadenza, the violin plays some quarter-tones (starting at 49 seconds, in the clip below).
    — Richard Sandomir, New York Times, 3 Aug. 2021
  • Alexandra Nowakowski more than filled out the demands of this exhilarating stretch — trills, runs, its own cadenza, and a spectacular high D near the end.
    — Peter Dobrin, Philly.com, 2 Mar. 2018
  • Extraneous noise — a drawback of outdoor performances — intruded upon the piano cadenza in the first movement.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 30 Oct. 2021
  • Abduraimov got a little carried away in the first-movement cadenza, building up a massive Lisztian climax out of proportion with its surroundings.
    — Scott Cantrell, Dallas News, 23 Oct. 2020
  • Roustom set a good deal of dialogue between the soloist and the wind section in the cadenza to acknowledge Fuller Heyde’s position as a member of the orchestra.
    — Tim Diovanni, Dallas News, 10 May 2021
  • The violinist pulled his cadenza horsehair thin, stretching his line into a barely there filament of sound before serrating his edges and ramping up to a sawing, smoking climax.
    — Michael Andor Brodeur, Washington Post, 20 Jan. 2023

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

Last Updated: