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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.
Thematic changes and processes are often musical form important, and theorists such as Rudolph Reti have created analysis from a purely thematic perspective. Fred Lerdahl describes thematic relations as "associational" and thus outside his cognitive-based generative music's scope of analysis.
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 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 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. 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.
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In a fugue, a countersubject is "the continuation of counterpoint in the voice that began with the subject", occurring against the answer. 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, all perfect fifths inverting to perfect fourths which required resolution.
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