Soprano, working with contralto, engaged in hard work and lyrical expertise (9)
I believe the answer is:
songcraft
'lyrical expertise' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I cannot tell whether this works.
'soprano working with contralto engaged in hard work' is the wordplay.
'soprano' becomes 's' (musical abbreviation).
'working with' becomes 'on' (on can mean working or activated. I am not sure about the 'with' bit.).
'contralto' becomes 'c' (musical abbreviation).
'engaged in' is an insertion indicator.
'hard work' becomes 'graft' (graft can mean working hard).
'c' inserted within 'graft' is 'gcraft'.
's'+'on'+'gcraft'='SONGCRAFT'
'and' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
I've seen this clue in The Independent.
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