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• n  a persistent but subordinate motif
• n  a part of the score that must be performed without change or omission

• With close harmony and wordless rhythm, Norman Kaye and Frankie Ross cushion Mary Kaye's wailing obbligato, producing a pleasant blend of sound that may sometimes suggest the .
• What did it matter if the subway occasionally added its profundo rumble to the bass, or if passing fire sirens sounded a wailing obbligato to the treble?.
• The Hollywood section fails to include "ootchimagootchi" (hot talk as an obbligato to Latin lovemaking), though it does give "wrinkle" (an actress' mother).

• obligato

Quotes

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• Harrison Birtwistle in guardian.co.uk
  An alto saxophone often plays at the same time as Ariadne - "An obbligato, I suppose you'd call it," Birtwistle says.
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in guardian.co.uk
  Nothing has ever surprised me so much,wrote Mozart enthusiastically to his father after seeing Georg Benda's melodrama Medea in Mannheim, towards the end of 1778. "It is not sung, but only declaimed, and the music is like an obbligato...