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fantasia

(făn-tā'zhə, -zhē-ə, făn'tə-zē'ə) pronunciation

n. Music.

A free composition structured according to the composer's fancy. Also called fantasy.
A medley of familiar themes, with variations and interludes.

[Italian, from Latin phantasia, fantasy. See fantasy.]

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Music Encyclopedia: Fantasia

(It.; Eng. fancy, fantasy; Fr. fantasie; Ger. Fantasie, Phantasie)

An instrumental piece in which the imagination of the composer takes precedence over conventional styles and forms.

The lute fantasias of Francesco da Milano, widely imitated in the 16th century, integrate imitation techniques with brilliant idiomatic play. The lute (or vihuela) fantasia was also cultivated by Luis de Milán in Spain and composers elsewhere, notably Dowland in England. The keyboard fantasia, whose types included arrangements of vocal polyphony, variations on the hexachord, free ricercares and (in Germany) chorale-based pieces, came to the fore in the late 16th century and was popular in the 17th; composers include Frescobaldi, Sweelinck, Scheidt, Froberger, Byrd and Orlando Gibbons. Ensemble fantasias were written in many countries, too, but especially in England, where Purcell paid tribute to a long tradition to which Byrd, Gibbons, Jenkins, William Lawes and Locke had contributed.

While the ensemble type had largely died out by 1700, the keyboard fantasia remained important, especially in Germany. It soon severed its links with imitative counterpoint; J.S. Bach's best-known example, the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue (bwv 903), combines elements of toccata and recitative. C.P.E. Bach's fantasias are rhapsodic and improvisatory works for clavichord, many of them unbarred, but like Mozart's piano fantasias their sections are organized into a coherent structure. To the Romantics the fantasia offered the means of formal expansion without the constraints of rigid sonata form. Beethoven, in his two sonatas ‘quasi una fantasia’ (op.27), pointed the way for the piano fantasias of Schubert, Chopin and Schumann. The term ‘fantasia’ was also used, by Liszt and others, for virtuoso pieces based on themes from an opera or other work. 20th-century composers, too, have used the term for extended instrumental pieces (e.g. Schoenberg's op.47) and for free variations (e.g. Tippett's Fantasia on a Theme by Corelli).

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: fantasia

Musical composition free in form and inspiration, often for an instrumental soloist. Most fantasias try to convey the impression of improvisation. The first were Italian works for lute (c. 1530). Keyboard fantasias became common in the late 16th century; both organ and harpsichord fantasias flourished in the 17th and 18th centuries in Britain, Germany, and France. Fugal, imitative texture, sometimes highly learned in character, was common from the beginning, often alternating with running passagework and highly chromatic chordal passages in free rhythms. Ensemble fantasias were widely composed as well.

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Dictionary of Dance: Fantasia

Disney's seminal 1940 cartoon contains some masterpieces of animated choreography. Fairies, fish, and mushrooms dance to sections of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker while Ponchielli's Dance of the Hours becomes a ballet for ostriches, hippos, and alligators. Disney's team made extensive drawings of real dancers including Baranova, Riabouchinska, and Lichine to ensure the comic accuracy of the movement.

Columbia Encyclopedia: fantasia

(făntā'zhə) [Ital.,=fancy], musical composition not restricted to a formal design, but constructed freely in the manner of an improvisation. In the 16th and 17th cent., however, the term designated a contrapuntal piece employing imitation and thus was one of the forerunners of the fugue. The term is also applied to improvisatory pieces based on earlier works, e.g., Vaughan Williams's Fantasia on “Greensleeves.”

Wikipedia: fantasia (music)

The fantasia (also English: fantasy, fancy, German: fantasie, French: fantaisie) is a musical composition with its roots in the art of improvisation. Because of this, it seldom approximates the textbook rules of any strict musical form.

In the Baroque and Classical music eras, a fantasia was typically a piece for keyboard instruments with alternating sections of rapid passagework and fugal texture. From the Baroque period, J. S. Bach's Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, BWV 903, for harpsichord; Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV 542, for organ; and Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 537, for organ are examples. For an example from the Classical period, see Mozart's Fantasia in D minor, K. 397 (see Köchel) for fortepiano. In contemporary music, Busoni's Fantasia Contrappuntistica or Corigliano's Fantasia on an ostinato are examples of a fantasia.

The term also referred in the Baroque era (more specifically British Tudor music) to pieces for viols, characteristically- though not always- alternating, in this case rapid fugal sections with slower sections in slow notes and sometimes clashing harmonies. According to the Oxford Concise Dictionary of Music's entry the instrumental fantasia was closely related in its history and form to the motet. Henry Purcell's fantasias are the last Baroque representatives of the breed, although Walter Willson Cobbett, in the opening decades of the 20th century, attempted to resurrect something of this style via a competition, to which works like John Ireland's and Frank Bridge's phantasie-trios, Benjamin Britten's phantasie-quartet (for oboe and strings) and other music owe their existence.

In the Romantic period, two contradictory trends greatly affected the fantasia: one was the decline of formal improvisation as a test of the compositional technique; the other was the move by composers toward freer forms. Chopin's Fantasy in F minor op. 49, combines various keyboard textures of the stile brillante with the classical sonata paradigm, resulting in a work of unorthodox but sophisticated form. Schumann's numerous 'fantasy pieces' are character works on a smaller scale, often bearing descriptive titles.

		Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more
		Music Encyclopedia. The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved. Read more
		Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more
		Dictionary of Dance. The Oxford Dictionary of Dance. Copyright © 2000, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more
		Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/ Read more
		Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Fantasia (music)". Read more
		Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved. Read more

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