Definition of "music drama" []

• An opera that avoids discrete numbers such as arias, recitatives, or ensembles, and in which the music reflects or embodies the action of the drama. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Besides the “Faust” symphony, he composed during this period the twelve symphonic poems, thus originating a new and highly important musical form, which may be said to bear, in their liberation from pedantry, the same relation to the set symphony that the music drama does to opera; the “Rhapsodies Hongroises;” his piano sonata and concertos; the “Graner Messe;” and the beginnings of his “Christus” and"