Musical Form
Fantasia
Music that follows the composer's imagination rather than the rules.
Form / Structure
A fantasia (also fantasy, fantasie, or fancy) is a piece in which the composer's imagination, or fantasy, takes the lead instead of a fixed form. Fantasias often sound improvised: they wander freely from idea to idea, change mood and tempo suddenly, and surprise the listener. Over the centuries, the name has been used for very different kinds of music, united by that sense of freedom.
Renaissance fancies
The fantasia began in the 16th century as an instrumental piece for lute or keyboard, free of any song or dance it had to follow. Composers such as Francesco da Milano and John Dowland wrote fantasias for the lute of great beauty. In England, the fancy for a consort of viols became a favorite form of serious chamber music, and Purcell's fantasias for viols, written around 1680, are among its last and greatest examples. See viola da gamba.
Baroque and Classical fantasias
For Bach, a fantasia was a dramatic, improvisatory showpiece, often paired with a strict fugue - as in his Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue for harpsichord and his great Fantasia and Fugue in G minor for organ. His son C. P. E. Bach wrote free fantasias, often without bar lines, full of sudden changes of mood.
Mozart's Fantasias in D minor and C minor for piano are dark, searching pieces, quite different from his sonatas, and Beethoven called two of his piano sonatas, including the "Moonlight," quasi una fantasia ("in the manner of a fantasia") because they break the usual rules. Beethoven's Choral Fantasy for piano, chorus, and orchestra is a trial run for the finale of his Ninth Symphony.
Romantic and later fantasies
Romantic composers loved the freedom of the fantasy. Schubert's "Wanderer" Fantasy links four movements built from a single song theme, and his Fantasia in F minor for piano duet is one of his most moving works. Schumann's Fantasie in C major is a passionate love letter to his future wife Clara, and Chopin wrote a Fantaisie in F minor as well as the popular Fantaisie-Impromptu.
In the 20th century, Vaughan Williams wrote his Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910), a glowing work for string orchestra that looks back to the old English fancy. And Disney's Fantasia (1940) borrowed the word for its animated journey through classical music.
Famous fantasias
- Bach - Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, for harpsichord.
- Mozart - Fantasia in D minor, K. 397, for piano.
- Beethoven - Piano Sonata No. 14, "Moonlight" (quasi una fantasia).
- Schubert - Fantasia in F minor, D. 940, for piano four hands.
- Schumann - Fantasie in C major, Op. 17.
- Chopin - Fantaisie-Impromptu.
- Vaughan Williams - Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.
Where to start listening: Mozart's Fantasia in D minor, then the Tallis Fantasia by Vaughan Williams. See also the toccata and prelude, its free-spirited cousins.