Subject (music)

In music, a subject is the material,

usually a recognizable melody, upon
which part or all of a composition is
based. In forms other than the fugue,
this may be known as the theme.

Contents First theme of Haydn's Sonata in G Major, Hob. XVI: G1, I, mm.
Characteristics 1–12[1]
0:00 MENU
In different types of music
Countersubject
See also
References
Further reading

Characteristics
A subject may be perceivable as a complete musical expression in itself, separate from the work
in which it is found.[2] In contrast to an idea or motif, a subject is usually a complete phrase or
period.[3] The Encyclopédie Fasquelle defines a theme (subject) as "[a]ny element, motif, or
small musical piece that has given rise to some variation becomes thereby a theme".[4]

Thematic changes and processes are often structurally important, and theorists such as
Rudolph Reti have created analysis from a purely thematic perspective.[5][6] Fred Lerdahl
describes thematic relations as "associational" and thus outside his cognitive-based generative
theory's scope of analysis.[7]

In different types of music

Music based on a single theme is called 'monothematic', while music based on several themes is
called 'polythematic'. Most fugues are monothematic and most pieces in sonata form are
polythematic.[8] In the exposition of a fugue, the principal theme (usually called the 'subject') is
announced successively in each voice – sometimes in a transposed form.

In some compositions, a principal subject is announced and then a second melody, sometimes
called a 'countersubject' or 'secondary theme', may occur. When one of the sections in the
exposition of a sonata-form movement consists of several themes or other material, defined by
function and (usually) their tonality, rather than by melodic characteristics alone, the term
'theme group' (or 'subject group') is sometimes used.[9][1]
 Music without subjects/themes, or
without recognizable, repeating, and
developing subjects/themes, is called
'athematic'. Examples include the pre-
twelve-tone or early atonal works of
Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern,
Alban Berg, and Alois Hába.
Schoenberg once said that,
"intoxicated by the enthusiasm of
having freed music from the shackles
of tonality, I had thought to find
First theme of Mozart's Sonata in C major, K. 309, I.
further liberty of expression. In fact,
I … believed that now music could
0:00 MENU renounce motivic features and remain
coherent and comprehensible
nevertheless".[10] Examples by
Schoenberg include Erwartung.
Examples in the works of later composers include Polyphonie X and Structures I by Pierre
Boulez, Sonata for Two Pianos by Karel Goeyvaerts, and Punkte by Karlheinz Stockhausen.[11]

Countersubject
In a fugue, when the first voice has
completed the subject, and the second
voice is playing the answer, the first
voice usually continues by playing a
new theme that is called the
'countersubject'. The countersubject
usually contrasts with the
Opening of Bach's Fugue No. 2 in C minor from The Well-
subject/answer phrase shape.
Tempered Clavier, Book I, BWV 847, showing the subject,
answer, and countersubject[12]
In a fugue, a countersubject is "the
continuation of counterpoint in the 0:00 MENU
voice that began with the subject",
occurring against the answer.[13] It is
not usually regarded as an essential
feature of fugue, however.[14]

The typical fugue opening resembles the following:[13]

Soprano voice: Answer

Alto voice: Subject Countersubject

Since a countersubject may be used both above and below the answer, countersubjects are
usually invertible, all perfect fifths inverting to perfect fourths which required resolution.[15]

See also
Attacco
 Cell
Figure
Formula composition
Leitmotif
Thematic transformation

References
1. Benward and Saker 2009, 136.
2. Drabkin 2001.
3. Dunsby 2002.
4. Michel 1958–1961.
5. Reti 1951.
6. Reti 1967.
7. Lerdahl 2001, 5.
8. Randel 2002, 429.
9. Rushton 2001.
10. Schoenberg 1975, 88.
11. Grondines 2000.
12. Benward and Saker 2009, 57.
13. Benward and Saker 2009, 2:50.
14. Walker 2001.
15. Benward and Saker 2009, 2:51.

Sources

Benward, Bruce, and Marilyn Nadine Saker (2009). Music in Theory and Practice, eighth
edition, vol. 2. Boston: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-310188-0.
Drabkin, William (2001). "Theme". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians,
second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
Dunsby, Jonathan (2002). "Theme". The Oxford Companion to Music, edited by Alison
Latham. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-866212-2.
Grondines, Pierre (2000). "Une nouvelle grammaire musicale: prémices et premiers essais (
http://www.scena.org/lsm/sm6-3/serialime-fr.html)" / "A New Musical Grammar: Principles
and Early Experiments (http://www.scena.org/lsm/sm6-3/serialime-en.html)". La Scena
Musicale 6, no. 3 (November).
Lerdahl, Fred (2001). Tonal Pitch Space (https://books.google.com/books?id=6bxFrgVMDps
C). Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-517829-6.
Michel, François (ed). (1958–1961). Encyclopédie de la musique, 3 vols. Paris: Fasquelle.
(Cited in Nattiez 1990.)
Nattiez, Jean-Jacques (1990). Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music,
translated by Caroline Abbate [from Musicologie générale et sémiologie, 1987]. Princeton:
Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-09136-6 (cloth); ISBN 0-691-02714-5.
Randel, Don Michael (ed.) (1999). The Harvard Concise Dictionary of Music and Musicians.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press. ISBN 0-674-00978-9.
Reti, Rudolph (1951). The Thematic Process in Music. London: Faber and Faber; New York:
Macmillan Co. Reprinted, London: Faber and Faber, 1961, Westport, CT: Greenwoid Press,
1978. ISBN 0-8371-9875-5.
 1978. ISBN 0-8371-9875-5.
Reti, Rudolph (1967). Thematic Patterns in Sonatas of Beethoven, edited by Deryck Cooke.
London: Faber and Faber; New York: Macmillan Co. Reprinted, New York: Da Capo Press,
1992. ISBN 0-306-79714-3.
Rushton, Julia (2001). "Subject Group". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians,
second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
Schoenberg, Arnold (1975). "My Evolution". In Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold
Schoenberg, edited by Leonard Stein, translated by Leo Black, 88. London: Faber and
Faber. ISBN 0-571-09722-7.
Walker, Paul M. 2001. "Countersubject". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians,
second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.

Further reading
Lerdahl, Fred (1992)."Cognitive Constraints on Compositional Systems". Contemporary
Music Review 6, no. 2:97–121.

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