Such detail as starting foot rules and phrase endings are notable for their apparent absence.

Beneath a bright surface created largely by speedy tempos and sharp dynamic contrasts, precision fled at several points, most notably at phrase endings that were not quite together.

Occasionally, the forcefulness of Mr. Osorio's style led him to step on melodies, particularly at phrase endings, or to smudge a texture here or a harmony there.

She uses vibrato unsparingly at phrase endings and pauses for emphasis just before the top of every ascending scale.

In "Norwegian Wood," she jettisoned the subtle understatement of Lennon's original vocal and undercut the lyrics by stressing the phrase endings.

That element is most pronounced in Mr. Cole's growled, dropped-off phrase endings.

Berenguier's well-preserved music is generally syllabic with a few melismatic phrase endings; conservative, generally staying within an octave; and motivically structured, having something in common with that of Bernart de Ventadorn.

Her inspiration and constant fallback is Russian liturgical music, with its narrow melodic range and its modal contours of whole-step resolutions and major-third phrase endings.

There are moments, perhaps, where an even more heroic timbre would have been appropriate, and others where phrase endings could have been handled more attentively.

There was, for example, comparatively little vibrato, and phrase endings sometimes had slight dynamic swells.