As a youngster hearing my first operas in New York I was hooked not just by Birgit Nilsson's blue-laser high notes soaring over the orchestra and chorus in Puccini's "Turandot" but also by the melting, uncanny richness of Renata Tebaldi's soft refrains of "Salce!
The mourning doves coo their soft, underlying refrain.
Mr. Lazio has criticized Mrs. Clinton for using soft money and has refrained from setting up a committee to raise such money for his campaign.
By yesterday, after prodding from the Lazio campaign, the Republican State Committee announced that it would refrain from spending soft money on the race while the two campaigns negotiated an agreement.
It asked that the station refrain from broadcasting "soft-money-financed attack advertisements".
By choosing a multibillion-dollar test of a missile defense, Democrats sought to neutralize the Republican refrain that they are soft on defense.
But these provocative, needling images are embedded in a soft news story, an exhibition that refrains from naming fears or the concrete reasons for fear.
The farmer knows he has to get rid of the bear, but he can never quite bring himself to do it, because (according to the story's refrain) the bear has such beautiful soft fur and such beautiful dark eyes.
At a news conference today, he brushed aside a question about why he did not voluntarily refrain from raising corporate and labor soft money, given his backing for such a ban.
What is your reaction to Al Gore's statement that he had asked the Democratic National Committee to refrain from running issue ads financed with soft money?
Formally, the elements are familiar, too: the soft piano opening, the finger-snapping, and, after the refrain, the choir, sailing in on its own ceremonious, overly stylized wind.
