Through Composing

I've been working on a few short songs lately. They are all in strophic form, which is, same music for each verse but different text. However, I want to try a through composed piece, different music for each verse. I looked at Beethoven's Adelaide, and I saw that really there is not much similar melodic material throughout the piece. The melodies aren't so short, but long and connected. Which leads me to my question.

How do you compose through composed pieces? Do you just write different music and that's it? Or is it more complex. Also, I'm having trouble with my melodies and phrases. Most my music sounds like one phrase after another. I've tried using extensions and avoiding the cadence, but that's lead to lots of repetition and long clumsy phrases. One of the problems, I think, is that each part of the melody is too distinct and separate. I can't get them to flow together. Anyway, I'm thinking about Robert Frost's A WInter Eden.

If anyone has suggestions or ideas, I would appreciate them. Thanks so much!

How do you compose through composed pieces? Do you just write different music and that's it? Or is it more complex.

You have the right starting ideas about through-composed music. In a vocal idiom you can write different music to each stanza of text. Here is what I would suggest: set music to a text that is non-stanzaic and lacks a rhyme scheme (you might try Whitman). If you choose a poem that lacks an obvious form you will be free to focus on the meanings and sounds of the words. Once you get a good idea of how to have your music flow but not repeat you could go back to Frost and see what happens. Try to let the words shape the music and let it take you where it will. This is one method of composing a through-composed vocal piece. Remember that just because a piece is through-composed doesn't mean that it is not connected in some way throughout (perhaps by a system of counterpoint, a logical tonal scheme, a rhythmic/melodic motive whose duration is manipulated throughout but not used the same way twice, etc...).