0 a musical phrase (= group of notes) or rhythm that is repeated many times in the course of a longer piece:
The lesson ended with round being sung again, this time in three parts over the ostinato.
Curiously, the inscriptions for the canons and the soggetto ostinato are lacking.
From this wry gesture emerged a tense, enigmatic ostinato figure, dry and mordant.
Once we reach the ticking, clattering ostinato (in the film so memorably applied to the expedition ship crunching through pack-ice), things improve tremendously.
The ostinato is one of many devices of this effect.
The melody in the right hand is carved from the ostinato motive, which creates a sort of heterophony.
As we might by now expect, the harmonies are derived from a verticalization of the ostinato hexachord.
Eventually, all that was left was the original ostinato, again played pianissimo.
