The little company ate an uneventful dinner amid long stretches of silence.

Litchfield's greatest asset seems to be the land itself - its restored old houses and charming villages sit amid long scenic stretches of fields and forests.

And the program ended on a more complex note, with the Symphony No. 36 in C (K.425), the "Linz" - a work that includes patches of tragic darkness amid stretches of vivacity.

And she closed the performance with the Franck Sonata, in which moments of real poetry peeked out from amid long stretches of bland, insecure playing that was often swamped by the piano.

Amid endless stretches of mountain highway, it is possible to find some people who fit the old mountain stereotypes.

Alas, in a pattern wearily familiar from recent Mariinsky tours, such expressive outbursts appeared haphazardly amid stretches of lacklustre, even slipshod, playing.

A few stores were open here and there amid great stretches of retail wreckage.

Local residents, who inhabit mostly small forest towns amid vast stretches of wilderness, refer to the area as "pine belt," "the pinelands," or "the pines."

The land rose slightly towards the farm, the area about the house forming something of a little island amid marshy ground and irregular stretches of water that gave back to the sky its own dun tone.

Both had many parts, and amid stretches of strong arrangements there were serious longueurs, patches of creaky lyric writing and a general feeling of bloat.