![First theme Haydn's Sonata in G Major](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/First_theme_Haydn%27s_Sonata_in_G_Major.png)
In
music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...
, a subject is the material, usually a recognizable
melody, upon which part or all of a
composition
Composition or Compositions may refer to:
Arts and literature
*Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography
*Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include v ...
is based. In forms other than the
fugue, this may be known as the theme.
Characteristics
A subject may be perceivable as a complete musical expression in itself, separate from the work in which it is found. In contrast to an idea or
motif, a subject is usually a complete
phrase
In syntax and grammar, a phrase is a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adjective phrase "very happy". Phrases can consi ...
or
period
Period may refer to:
Common uses
* Era, a length or span of time
* Full stop (or period), a punctuation mark
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Period (music), a concept in musical composition
* Periodic sentence (or rhetorical period), a concept ...
. The ''Encyclopédie Fasquelle'' defines a theme (subject) as "
y element, motif, or small musical piece that has given rise to some variation becomes thereby a theme".
Thematic changes and processes are often
structurally
A structure is an arrangement and organization of interrelated elements in a material object or system, or the object or system so organized. Material structures include man-made objects such as buildings and machines and natural objects such as ...
important, and theorists such as
Rudolph Reti Rudolph Reti, also Réti ( srp, Рудолф Рети, translit=Rudolf Reti; November 27, 1885 – February 7, 1957), was a musical analyst, composer and pianist. He was the older brother of the chess master Richard Réti, but unlike his brother, ...
have created analysis from a purely thematic perspective.
Fred Lerdahl
Alfred Whitford (Fred) Lerdahl (born March 10, 1943, in Madison, Wisconsin) is the Fritz Reiner Professor Emeritus of Musical Composition at Columbia University, and a composer and music theorist best known for his work on musical grammar and co ...
describes thematic relations as "associational" and thus outside his cognitive-based
generative theory's scope of analysis.
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
Sonata form (also ''sonata-allegro form'' or ''first movement form'') is a musical structure generally consisting of three main sections: an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation. It has been used widely since the middle of the 18th c ...
are polythematic. In the
exposition
Exposition (also the French for exhibition) may refer to:
*Universal exposition or World's Fair
* Expository writing
** Exposition (narrative)
* Exposition (music)
*Trade fair
A trade fair, also known as trade show, trade exhibition, or trade e ...
of a fugue, the principal theme (usually called the 'subject') is announced successively in each
voice
The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound producti ...
– sometimes in a
transposed
In linear algebra, the transpose of a matrix is an operator which flips a matrix over its diagonal;
that is, it switches the row and column indices of the matrix by producing another matrix, often denoted by (among other notations).
The tr ...
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.
Music without subjects/themes, or without recognizable, repeating, and developing subjects/themes, is called 'athematic'. Examples include the pre-
twelve-tone
The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition first devised by Austrian composer Josef Matthias Hauer, who published his "law o ...
or early
atonal
Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. ''Atonality'', in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on a ...
works of
Arnold Schoenberg,
Anton Webern
Anton Friedrich Wilhelm von Webern (3 December 188315 September 1945), better known as Anton Webern (), was an Austrian composer and conductor whose music was among the most radical of its milieu in its sheer concision, even aphorism, and stead ...
,
Alban Berg, and
Alois Hába
Alois Hába (21 June 1893 – 18 November 1973) was a Czech composer, music theorist and teacher. He belongs to the important discoverers in modern classical music, and major composers of microtonal music, especially using the quarter-tone scal ...
. Schoenberg once said that, "intoxicated by the enthusiasm of having freed music from the shackles of tonality, I had thought to find further liberty of expression. In fact, I … believed that now music could renounce motivic features and remain coherent and comprehensible nevertheless". Examples by Schoenberg include ''
Erwartung
' (''Expectation''), Op. 17, is a one-act monodrama in four scenes by Arnold Schoenberg to a libretto by . Composed in 1909, it was not premiered until 6 June 1924 in Prague conducted by Alexander Zemlinsky with Marie Gutheil-Schoder as the sop ...
''. Examples in the works of later composers include ''
Polyphonie X
''Polyphonie X'' (1950–51) is a three- movement composition by Pierre Boulez for eighteen instruments divided into seven groups, with a duration of roughly fifteen minutes. Following the work's premiere, Boulez withdrew the score, stating that i ...
'' and ''
Structures I'' by
Pierre Boulez,
Sonata for Two Pianos by
Karel Goeyvaerts
Karel August Goeyvaerts (8 June 1923 – 3 February 1993) was a Belgian composer.
Life
Goeyvaerts was born in Antwerp, where he studied at the Royal Flemish Music Conservatory; he later studied composition in Paris with Darius Milhaud and analys ...
, and ''
Punkte
''Punkte'' (Points) is an orchestral composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, given the work number ½ in his catalogue of works.
History
''Punkte'' originated as a punctual orchestral work which was begun in September in Hamburg and had reached a ...
'' by
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th-century classical music, 20th and early 21st-century ...
.
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 subject/answer phrase shape.
In a fugue, a countersubject is "the continuation of
counterpoint in the
voice
The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound producti ...
that began with the subject", occurring against the
answer
Answer commonly refers to response to a question.
Answer may also refer to:
* Answer (law), any reply to a question, counter-statement or defense in a legal procedure
Music
* Answer, an element of a fugue
Albums
* ''Answer'' (Angela Aki alb ...
. It is not usually regarded as an essential feature of fugue, however.
The typical fugue opening resembles the following:
Soprano voice:
Answer
Alto voice:
Subject Countersubject
Since a countersubject may be used both above and below the answer, countersubjects are usually
invertible
In mathematics, the concept of an inverse element generalises the concepts of opposite () and reciprocal () of numbers.
Given an operation denoted here , and an identity element denoted , if , one says that is a left inverse of , and that is ...
, all perfect fifths
inverting to perfect fourths which required
resolution
Resolution(s) may refer to:
Common meanings
* Resolution (debate), the statement which is debated in policy debate
* Resolution (law), a written motion adopted by a deliberative body
* New Year's resolution, a commitment that an individual mak ...
.
See also
*
Attacco
Attacco, in music, indicates a short phrase, treated as a point of imitation; and employed, either as the subject of a fugue, as a subordinate element introduced for the purpose of increasing the interest of its development, as a leading feature ...
*
Cell
Cell most often refers to:
* Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life
Cell may also refer to:
Locations
* Monastic cell, a small room, hut, or cave in which a religious recluse lives, alternatively the small precursor of a monastery ...
*
Figure
Figure may refer to:
General
*A shape, drawing, depiction, or geometric configuration
*Figure (wood), wood appearance
*Figure (music), distinguished from musical motif
*Noise figure, in telecommunication
*Dance figure, an elementary dance pattern ...
*
Formula composition
*
Leitmotif
*
Thematic transformation Thematic transformation (also known as thematic metamorphosis or thematic development) is a musical technique in which a leitmotif, or theme, is developed by changing the theme by using permutation ( transposition or modulation, inversion, and retr ...
References
Sources
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Further reading
*
Lerdahl, Fred (1992)."Cognitive Constraints on Compositional Systems". ''Contemporary Music Review'' 6, no. 2:97–121.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Subject (Music)
Formal sections in music analysis
Melody
Polyphonic form