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.
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][clarification needed]
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-
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
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
See also
References
- ^ a b Benward and Saker 2009, 136.
- ^ Drabkin 2001.
- ^ Dunsby 2002.
- ^ Michel 1958–1961.
- ^ Reti 1951.
- ^ Reti 1967.
- ^ Lerdahl 2001, 5.
- ^ Randel 2002, 429.
- ^ Rushton 2001.
- ^ Schoenberg 1975, 88.
- ^ Grondines 2000.
- ^ Benward and Saker 2009, 57.
- ^ a b Benward and Saker 2009, 2:50.
- ^ Walker 2001.
- ^ 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.
- ISBN 0-19-866212-2.
- Grondines, Pierre (2000). "Une nouvelle grammaire musicale: prémices et premiers essais" / "A New Musical Grammar: Principles and Early Experiments". La Scena Musicale6, no. 3 (November).
- Lerdahl, Fred (2001). Tonal Pitch Space. 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.)
- ISBN 0-691-02714-5.
- 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.
- Reti, Rudolph (1967). Thematic Patterns in Sonatas of Beethoven, edited by 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.
- 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.