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The main theme of a fugue, stated at the outset and imitated by each subsequent voice.
A good fugue subject has a distinctive rhythmic profile that is immediately recognizable. It should work in counterpoint against itself. Consider what happens when it is inverted, augmented, or combined with other subjects. Test your subject against a potential countersubject before committing.
Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, Fugue No. 2 in C minor, BWV 847: the subject enters alone in the middle of three voices, and its opening turn around C makes each later entry easy to pick out.
Subject is one of 1760 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
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