chiffre

plural chiffres

1. entertainmentA figure or motif (short melodic or lyrical passage that is repeated).

   1 more example

   At the end of the eighteenth century, French opera composers like A. E. Grétry (Richard Coeur de Lion, 1784), L. Cherubini (Medeé, 1797), and J. Fr. Le Cueur (Ossian ou les Bardes, 1804) began to “assign musical chiffres to precise dramatic situations or single figures on the stage, which were played again when these figures appeared again,” according to Bern University professor Anselm Gerhard.

   2014, Peter Wegele, Max Steiner: Composing, Casablanca, and the Golden Age of Film Music