Sentence:  A biting , pithy parable of the all pervading hollowness of <WSD>modern</WSD> life , the piece has been set by Mlle Lagoon to a sumptuous score ( a single motif played over and over by four thousand French horns ) by existentialist hot-shot Jean-Paul Sartre . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  belonging to the modern era; since the Middle Ages