How to Use contrapuntal in a Sentence

contrapuntal

adjective
Definition of contrapuntalnext
  • Our careers flowed in contrapuntal sign-waves, one of us up while the other was down.
    — Todd Robinson, The Hollywood Reporter, 19 Aug. 2023
  • One of the main challenges of the suites involves projecting the music’s contrapuntal textures.
    — Anthony Tommasini, BostonGlobe.com, 10 Aug. 2019
  • Nina Lee reveled in the nuances of their contrapuntal lines.
    — Tim Diovanni, Dallas News, 27 Apr. 2021
  • Throughout the book, there are contrapuntal poems that reflect these conflicts or two selves: self and mirror self as well as self and shadow self.
    — Alejandra Oliva, refinery29.com, 26 Oct. 2021
  • Aimaq uses this confrontation to set up a contrapuntal narrative between the lives of Daniel and Taj.
    — Paul Sedan, The Christian Science Monitor, 13 Jan. 2021
  • Variation 3, for example, is the first of the periodic contrapuntal canons in the score, with one line followed a couple of beats later by its echo.
    — Anthony Tommasini, New York Times, 4 Oct. 2020
  • By freeing the cello from having to always play the bass line, Dvořák was able to deploy it in a more contrapuntal manner against the upper strings, even allowing the cello to join or supplant them.
    — Christian Hertzog, sandiegouniontribune.com, 10 Aug. 2017
  • But these contrapuntal beats are too infrequent, and the director, Urie, hasn’t worked enough nuance into the more antic sections.
    — Celia Wren, Washington Post, 15 July 2019
  • Their contrapuntal skills and choral writing inspired Mozart.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 16 June 2019
  • In my seat, Gerstein’s immaculate contrapuntal flights were buried in the winds’ primary-colored blocks of sound.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 2 Aug. 2021
  • But contrapuntal elaboration works its way down through the string sections.
    — Scott Cantrell, Dallas News, 31 Oct. 2020
  • Its arrangements are lean and contrapuntal, uncushioned, making every note earn its place both as a melodic line and a rhythmic push.
    — The New York Times, New York Times, 27 Oct. 2022
  • The song becomes a study of contrapuntal motion between his left and right hands, framing his familiar, luminous melody.
    — Larry Blumenfeld, WSJ, 14 Sep. 2022
  • The zooms in and out also establish a crucial, contrapuntal rhythm between doctors and patients, and also between the physical and the abstract.
    — Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times, 27 Apr. 2023
  • But the overly broad performances, especially in the zippy courtroom scenes, drain the movie of nuance and blunt its realism, and the contrapuntal his-and-her flashbacks add little.
    — Manohla Dargis, New York Times, 12 Oct. 2017
  • The strings are divided into two groups and operate in contrapuntal dialogue, building a universe in sound from the lowest notes.
    — Los Angeles Times, 22 Feb. 2022
  • The tracks are 30 contrapuntal variations beginning and ending with an aria.
    — Virginia Heffernan, Wired, 17 June 2021
  • By the time a few dozen women are dancing in circles around a maypole, even the camerawork — with its sinuous flow and contrapuntal push-ins and pullouts — seems to be tightening its grip on the visitors.
    — Manohla Dargis, New York Times, 2 July 2019
  • Andsnes and Hamelin brought lift to the rhythms, definition to the spiky contrapuntal textures, of music that can easily sound aridly academic in lesser hands.
    — John Von Rhein, chicagotribune.com, 2 May 2017
  • On Saturday, secondary parts or contrapuntal inner voices struggled to come through or were lost completely in the overall sound.
    — Christian Hertzog, sandiegouniontribune.com, 10 Dec. 2017
  • The production by Matt Pierson gives the group a fuller, deeper sound, more like a rock band, and looping and other electronics effects allow the musicians to add bass lines, contrapuntal parts, and textures that weren't there when the group began.
    — Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader, 9 Feb. 2018
  • Drawn to the most extreme position, Judd eschewed any sort of contrapuntal or hierarchical arrangements of shapes and marks on a surface.
    — David Salle, The New York Review of Books, 17 Dec. 2020
  • Its obsession with contrapuntal display makes the middle registers (the octaves around middle C on the piano) sound clogged and overcrowded.
    — Russell Platt, The New Yorker, 3 Feb. 2017
  • Eugenides writes slowly, so Fresh Complaint feels almost like a sap to the readers who are waiting for another contrapuntal masterpiece.
    — Josephine Livingstone, New Republic, 4 Oct. 2017
  • Not a single image of the orchestra at work has a visual melody or a contrapuntal density, and the filming of performance seems borrowed from any DVD of a symphony orchestra.
    — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 12 Oct. 2022
  • Then there are the vocal harmonies, full-on chorale-like sections incorporating as many as eight voices at a time, with contrapuntal lines and distinctive harmony choices that have long been the hallmarks of his sound.
    — Randy Lewis, Los Angeles Times, 13 Sep. 2019
  • During more intense episodes, the instruments align into softly pungent chords or a bit of contrapuntal interplay.
    — Anthony Tommasini, New York Times, 25 Jan. 2018
  • Folksy melodies exchanged between the violin and piano in the second movement recall Bartok, while the violin’s contrapuntal lines in the opening of the third movement were reminiscent of a Bach partita.
    — Tim Diovanni, Dallas News, 20 Oct. 2020
  • Voices of a surveyor, a geologist, a nurse, a government official and a writer intertwined as though contrapuntal voices in a Bach fugue or suite.
    — Los Angeles Times, 22 Apr. 2020
  • What holds the movie together, for all its jittery syntax and rug-pulling midpoint twist, is the furiously combative, contrapuntal energy that courses between Silva and Firstman.
    — Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times, 8 Sep. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'contrapuntal.' 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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