1821 Bristol Mirror 7 Apr. 4/1 It is prudent to permit the introduction of written music in its stead, and which usually passes by the same name, as some times also the other parts of an Organist's duty, called ‘playing in’ and ‘playing out’, which might with great propriety be termed Prelude and Postlude.

1851 Fraser's Mag. 43 460 The prelude and the postlude, in which he has enveloped Handel, are his own.

1866 C. Engel Introd. Study National Music viii. 279 This is sung to the following tune, in which the instruments have after each verse a little postlude of three or four bars.

1891 Sat. Rev. 17 Oct. 441/2 The ‘postlude’ of the chorus.

1947 A. Einstein Music Romantic Era xiv. 187 The task..of supplying a commentary in the prelude and, particularly, the postlude.

1976 Gramophone Jan. 1229/1 Why the ties in the penultimate bar of the prelude and postlude of ‘Pause’?

1996 Spectator 31 Aug. 33/3 An orchestral postlude so long that no one would remember any longer what they were going to clap for.

1889 Atlantic Monthly Apr. 555/1 It is only the latter part [of the sermon], the postlude, which, without turning from the consideration of its not very adequate scriptural text, deals with the worth of the dead.

1928 M. Williams Catholicism & Mod. Mind 339 (heading) Postlude: Easter in Gethsemani.

1934 Punch 2 May 503/2 Miss Bowen's ‘postlude’, a carefully reasoned essay in historical criticism, is a drastic and devastating but on many points convincing analysis of romantic legend.

1959 Times 11 Sept. 16/6 Mr. Gerald Moore..whose little summarizing postludes to many of the songs..were miracles of concentrated wisdom.

1974 Times 15 Apr. 5/6 The rumpus was mostly caused by a very offensive postlude, spoken by one of the actors.

1992 Gramophone Jan. 51/1 This 72-minute programme of live recordings from Leonard Bernstein is a characteristically audacious postlude to a distinguished career.

1935 J. Erskine Musical Compan. ii. 178 Overtures were written just for their own sake, acting in a preludial or even postludial capacity in programs including other music.

1961 Times 10 Nov. 18/6 One of the poems is set twice: another has a preludial and postludial movement.

1992 New Yorker 28 Sept. 61/1 A good chunk of the finale was dropped in the revision, and the main body of the first movement, between the slow introduction and its postludial reprise, went as well.

1960 ‘A. Burgess’ Doctor is Sick xxi. 174 The psalmist ended, postluded.

1975 B. Baldwin Stud. in Aulus Gellius 89 An article on some legal abstrusity may be postluded by a tirade against charlatan philosophers.

1997 C. Goertzen Fiddling for Norway 326 The practice of postluding has indeed died out in the West, but survives in the East, although its strength in earlier times in that area remains unknown.