Fantasia

(It., Sp., Ger., Eng.; Eng., Fr., Ger. Fantasie; Fr., Ger. Phantasie; Fr.
fantaisie, fantasye, phantaisie; Eng., Ger. Phantasia; Ger. Fantasey; Eng.
fancie, fancy, fansye, fantasy, fantazia, fantazie, fantazy, phansie,
phantasy, phantazia).
A term adopted in the Renaissance for an instrumental composition whose
form and invention spring ‘solely from the fantasy and skill of the author
who created it’ (Luis de Milán, 1535–6). From the 16th century to the 19th
the fantasia tended to retain this subjective licence, and its formal and
stylistic characteristics may consequently vary widely from free,
improvisatory types to strictly contrapuntal and more or less standard
sectional forms.
1. To 1700.
2. 18th century.
3. 19th and 20th centuries.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHRISTOPHER D.S. FIELD (1), E. EUGENE HELM (2), WILLIAM
DRABKIN/R (3)
Fantasia
1. To 1700.
(i) Terminology.
(ii) Italy.
(iii) Spain.
(iv) France.
(v) Netherlands.
(vi) Germany.
(vii) Poland.
(viii) Great Britain.
Fantasia, §1: To 1700
(i) Terminology.
In the general senses of ‘imagination’, ‘product of the imagination’,
‘caprice’, derivatives of the Greek ‘phantasia’ were current in the principal
European languages by the late Middle Ages. The term was used as a title
in German keyboard manuscripts before 1520, and in printed tablatures
originating as far apart as Valencia, Milan, Nuremberg and perhaps Lyons
by 1536. Its earliest appearances in a musical context focus on the
imaginative musical ‘idea’, however, rather than on a particular
compositional genre. A three-part, imitative, textless composition by
Josquin is headed ‘Ile fantazies de Joskin’ (I-Rc 2856, c1480–85; ed. in
New Josquin Edition, 27.15), but it is doubtful whether this title had generic
significance; more probably it was intended to emphasize the ‘freely
invented’ (rather than borrowed) nature of the motivic material. Similarly a
letter written by the Ferrarese agent Gian to Ercole d'Este on 2 September
1502 refers to Isaac's four-part instrumental piece La mi la sol la sol la mi
(ed. in DTÖ, xxviii, Jg.xiv/1, 1907/R) as ‘uno moteto sopra una fantasia’:
here it is clearly the eight-note soggetto ostinato that is signified by the
term ‘fantasia’.
When Hermann Finck (1556) referred to ‘the requirements of Master
Mensura, Master Taktus, Master Tonus and especially Master Bona
fantasia’, he meant to stress the importance of musical imagination. The
sense of ‘the play of imaginative invention’ underlies the word's use as a
title in the 16th century, notably by lute or vihuela improvvisatori such as
Francesco Canova da Milano and Luis de Milán. Elsewhere it may signify
actual improvisation on an instrument, as when Bermudo and Santa María
wrote of the art of ‘tañer fantesia’.
From the outset, the term was used interchangeably with other generic
names like recercar and Preambel. With Francesco da Milano there is little
or no distinction between ‘fantasia’ and ‘recercar’; the same piece often
bears different labels in different sources, and both words may even be
found in combination (as when Pontus de Tyard describes Francesco
sitting down with his lute ‘à rechercher une fantaisie’). But ‘fantasia’ seems
to have been the more colloquial name: Bottrigari (1594) spoke of a
ricercare from Padovano's Primo libro as ‘a certain “fantasia” (as the
instrumentalists say) of his’. Classification of the fantasia as a kind of
prelude occurred especially in Germany and the Netherlands, from the
Preambeln of Neusidler and Gerle to Praetorius (who described it under a
heading, ‘Of Preludes in their own right’). The word was equated at
different times with tentos (Milán), voluntary (Byrd sources, Mace),
automaton, which means much the same (Phalèse), capriccio (Lindner,
Praetorius, Froberger sources), canzon (Terzi, Banchieri), or fuga
(Banchieri, Hagius, Scheidt, Froberger sources). In Spain, the technical
benefit of fantasias for ‘exercising the hands’ was frequently emphasized.
An essential of the fantasia is its freedom from words. The musician was
free ‘to employ whatever inspiration comes to him, without expressing the
passion of any text’ (MersenneHU, 1636–7); where voices were used, as
by the vihuelists Diego Pisador and Esteban Daza or in ensemble fantasias
‘for singing and playing’, it was to sol-fa. Point-of-imitation technique (a
development of vocal polyphony) appeared early, however, and not only in
ensemble fantasies: the illusion of the solo lutenist spinning a web of
imitative counterpoint had already been created by Marco Dall’Aquila,
Francesco da Milano (who fused imitation with virtuoso instrumental style;
see ex.1), Luys de Narváez (whose fantasias approach the style of motet
transcriptions) and, most completely, by Valentin Bakfark. Tomás de Santa
María (1565) stressed the importance of counterpoint in ‘fantasia-playing’;
Zarlino (3/1573, iii, chap. 26), writing of point-of-imitation technique,
remarked: ‘Such a manner of composing is demanded by the practitioners
in composing from fantasy’ (‘comporre di fantasia’). By the late 16th
century in Italy the fantasia (along with the ricercare) had become a
touchstone of contrapuntal skill; free from words, a series of fugal sections
might be given unity by recurrence of a subject, or an entire movement be
fashioned from a single subject or theme-complex; themes were modified
by inversion, augmentation and rhythmic transformation. A similarly
exhaustive approach to the treatment of subjects was adopted by
Sweelinck and other northern European organists.
In England, emphasis was rather on diversity of material. According to
Morley (1597, p.162) monothematic fantasias were seldom essayed except
‘to see what may be done upon a point’ or ‘to shew the diversitie of sundrie
mens vaines upon one subject’. He insisted, however, on unity of mode,
which was often made explicit in continental sources by designations such
as ‘Fantasia del primer tono’. His description of the ‘fantasie’ (ibid., p.181),
borrowed by Praetorius (PraetoriusSM) and echoed by Simpson (A
Compendium of Practical Musick, 1667), characterizes this ‘chiefest kind of
musicke which is made without a dittie’ as
when a musician taketh a point at his pleasure, and wresteth
and turneth it as he list, making either much or little of it as
shall seeme best in his own conceit. In this may more art be
showne then in any other musicke, because the composer is
tide to nothing but that he may adde, deminish, and alter at
his pleasure … . Other thinges you may use at your pleasure,
as bindings with discordes, quicke motions, slow motions,
proportions, and what you list. Likewise, this kind of musick is
with them who practise instruments of parts in greatest use,
but for voices it is but sildome used.
A widespread type of the 16th and early 17th centuries is the ‘parody’
fantasia. This took as its starting-point material from a polyphonic model
(motet, mass, chanson, madrigal or even another fantasia), often
appearing in the source with an intabulation of the model itself. Early
examples are those of Francesco da Milano, Enriquez de Valderrábano
and G.P. Paladino; Claudius Sebastiani (1563) taught that student
instrumentalists should practise decorating the end of a song or motet with
‘a fantasia gathered from the said song’. The name ‘fantasia’ was also
occasionally given to pieces treating a sacred or secular melody in cantus-
firmus or paraphrase technique (Rocco Rodio, Eustache Du Caurroy, Paul
Luetkeman, Mathias Reymann, Scheidt, Steigleder), but most of the 17th-
century German chorale settings now classified as ‘Choralfantasien’ were
not so called in the sources (see Chorale fantasia.
The following discussion of the fantasia in the 16th and 17th centuries is
organized by performing medium (lute, keyboard, consort) in each of the
major European centres of composition.
Fantasia, §1: To 1700
(ii) Italy.
The term lent itself especially aptly to the imaginative, seemingly
spontaneous creations of the early 16th-century lutenists. Pontus de Tyard
(1555, p.114) told of a banquet at Milan
where, among other rare pleasures got together for the
satisfaction of these select people, was Francesco di Milan, a
man regarded as having attained the ultimate perfection (if
such be possible) in fine lute playing. The tables being
cleared, he chose one, and, as if trying his tuning, sat down
at the end of it to seek out a fantaisie. No sooner had he
excited the air with three strokes than conversation which had
started up among the guests was silenced; and, having
constrained them to face where he sat, he continued with
such ravishing skill that little by little, making the strings
languish under his fingers with his divine touch, he
 transported all who were listening into so blandishing a
melancholy that … they were left deprived of every sense
apart from hearing.
The first Italian publication actually to designate compositions fantasia
(rather than recercar) appeared in Milan in 1536, with examples by
Dall’Aquila (GMB, 94), Francesco da Milano, Alberto da Ripa (who
reappeared at the French court as Albert de Rippe) and the Milanese
lutenists Albutio and Borrono. Over 40 pieces by the ‘divine’ Francesco are
termed ‘fantasia’ in their primary sources (HPM, iii–iv, 1970). These
integrate point-of-imitation technique with often brilliant idiomatic play
(inspired by the sound and feel of the lute). They include one explicit
example of a parody fantasia, which appears as a companion-piece to an
intabulation of its model (Richafort's De mon triste et desplaisir).
The fame of Francesco da Milano's fantasias is shown by imitations such
as those of the Spaniard Valderrábano, and by widespread reprints and
manuscripts. In the 50 years after his death, lute fantasias were published
by Borrono; Francesco da Milano's pupil Fiorentino Perino; the Paduan
priest Melchiore de Barberiis, whose Contina (1549) includes a fantasia on
Verdelot's Se mai provasti, fantasias calling for different tunings, another
which leaves upper parts to be added, another for two lutes at the octave,
and four trim, non-imitative fantasias for seven-course guitar; Giulio
Abondante, who on one title-page (1548) referred to recercari di fantasia;
the Flemish-born Ioanne Matelart, who also provided five of Francesco da
Milano's fantasias with second lute parts; Antonio di Becchi; Vincenzo
Galilei, whose Fronimo (1568) includes eight fantasias, two being parodies
on madrigals of Rore and Striggio; G.C. Barbetta; and Giacomo Gorzanis.
Paolo Virchi's Tabolatura (1574) has fantasias for cittern; Besard published
fantasias by Lorenzini and Fabrizio Dentice.
At the end of the century there are the lutebooks of G.A. Terzi and Simone
Molinaro. Terzi's second book (1599/R) contains fantasias ‘in modo di
Canzon Francese’ by himself, Francesco Guami (a transcription of an
ensemble canzona), Giovanni Gabrieli, and Gabrieli’s colleague Vincenzo
Bellavere; a transcription of a canzona a 4 by Florentio Maschera called
Canzon la Vilachiara, over fantasia; and finally a ‘canzona or fantasia’ by
Terzi for four lutes. Molinaro's first book (1599/R) includes 15 fantasias by
Molinaro himself, 25 by his uncle G.B. Della Gostena (maestro di cappella
at Genoa Cathedral), and one sopra ‘Susane un jour’ by Giulio Severino,
which freely recomposes Lassus's chanson as a longer instrumental piece.
Several of Molinaro's fantasias are on a single subject; diminution and
inversion are used. The 12th, a monothematic fantasia whose subject is
finally converted to triple time, is remarkable for its complete flatward orbit
of the circle of fifths.
Ricercares were prominent in printed Italian keyboard music from 1523
onwards, but fantasias were comparatively rare. Two different types of
fantasia are found in Neapolitan prints of 1575–6: three of the fantasie
sopra varii canti fermi in Rodio's Libro di ricercate are woven around hymn
or antiphon chants, a fourth around the melody La Spagna; the fantasia in
Antonio Valente's Intavolatura de cimbalo (ed. C. Jacobs, 1973), on the
other hand, is freely composed in two halves, expressive dissonance
complementing toccata-like brilliance. A solitary, posthumously published
Fantasia allegra (so called after the spirited treatment of its two points)
represents the Venetian master of the ricercare, Andrea Gabrieli (ed. P.
Pidoux, 1952, pp.3–5), although the improvising of a fantasia (‘sonar di
fantasia’) in four-part counterpoint on a subject taken at random from the
opening of a mass or motet was one of the tests for prospective organists
of S Marco. Giovanni Gabrieli's Fantasia quarti toni might be considered as
a written example of such a piece (ed. S. Dalla Libera, 1957).
Frescobaldi's first keyboard publication, his Fantasie a quattro (1608,
coinciding with his election to S Pietro), consists of contrapuntal studies as
disciplined as any ricercare (ed. P. Pidoux, 1950); indeed, the Ricercari of
1615 are altogether more diverse in construction. There are three sopra un
soggetto, followed by three each on two, three and four subjects. The first
three exemplify the technique of thematic variation that Frescobaldi was to
develop further in his canzonas: sections are based on successive
transformations of the subject, which is distorted rhythmically, inflected
melodically, reshaped in triple time, fragmented, inverted. In the
polythematic fantasias, the different subjects are treated not one by one,
but in combination. The 11th, for example, opens with a section in which
the four subjects are heard interlocked in various contrapuntal
permutations; next comes a section based on new, livelier versions of the
four themes; finally, each subject in turn is presented by a different voice as
a cantus firmus, while all four subjects play about it. After Frescobaldi the
fantasia almost disappeared from Italian keyboard music: Banchieri's
Organo suonarino (3/1622) includes two-part fantasias for the instruction of
the ‘budding organist’, and by Bernardo Pasquini there is part of a
monothematic fantasia in the Frescobaldi tradition (CEKM, v/1, 1964), but
these are rare examples.
The term ‘fantasia’ was not applied only to instrumental solos in the mid-
16th century. When the ricercares of Musica nova (RISM 154022) were
reprinted in France, they were called ‘phantaisies’; in Italy, too, they may
have been familiarly referred to as ‘fantasie’, just as one of Padovano's
Ricercari (1556) was called ‘fantasia’ by Bottrigari. Such interchangeability
of terms is confirmed by other sources; for instance, Antonio Gardane’s
Fantasie recercari contrapunti (1551) has no piece actually entitled
‘fantasia’. The first printed partbooks to admit the name are the Fantasie et
recerchari a tre (1549) of Giuliano Tiburtino and Willaert. Tiburtino's pieces
are labelled with the solmization syllables of their incipits, except for one
(which unlike the rest is not based on a single subject) headed ‘fantasia’.
Like Giovanni Bassano's Fantasie a tre (1585) they are ‘for singing and
playing on instruments of any kind’.
Any study of the fantasia’s development in Italy in the 1550s and 60s
needs to take into account four masterly four-part examples by ‘Giaches’,
which have been variously attributed to Giaches de Wert (MacClintock,
1966) and Jacques Brunel. One is found in a keyboard intabulation by
Antonio de Cabezón (see Pinto, 1994), so the latter attribution is perhaps
the more likely. All four fantasias show a tendency to build from a small
number of themes, using contrapuntal devices and thematic variation.
Sometimes a subject undergoes hexachordal inversion; one fantasia is an
extended treatment of a single subject. Bassano, in his 20 fantasias
(composed perhaps for Count Bevilacqua's accademia at Verona)
generally followed a clear-cut first section with new material, working
sometimes with one, sometimes two points at a time; even when inversion
is used, or themes recur, lightness of touch remains paramount (seven ed.
in HM, xvi, 1958).
The term ‘ricercari’ heads the consort collections of Andrea Gabrieli,
Luzzaschi, Francesco Stivori and others, but a few ‘fantasias’ were printed
in miscellanies. Ludovico Agostini's Il nuovo echo (1583) has a five-part
one ‘in imitation of’ Alessandro Striggio's S'ogni mio ben havete – a rare
instance of a parody fantasia for ensemble; Orazio Vecchi's Selva di varia
ricreatione (1590) includes a four-part fantasia, a tour de force of
composition sopra un soggetto, whose crotchet subject is inverted,
augmented into minims, into semibreves, into breves, syncopated into
alternate minims and crotchets, converted into triple time, and again
augmented; Giovanni Cavaccio's Musica (1597) begins and ends with
fantasie (La Bertani, La Gastolda). Banchieri also left ensemble fantasias,
chiefly in his Fantasie overo canzoni alla francese (1603). In these 21
pieces a 4 ‘for organ and other musical instruments’ a new clarity of
structure is evident; one, styled fantasia in echo, has a central, chordal
echo section, followed by a repeat of the triple-time opening section and a
duple-time coda. Two more fantasias form an ‘adjunct’ to his Moderna
armonia (1612); in one the instruments are disposed ‘a due Chori’.
Fantasias for instrumental ensembles continued occasionally to appear in
Italy until the middle of the 17th century. The sacred Concerti of Francesco
Milleville (1617) end with a fantasia alla francesca ‘for instruments of every
kind’ with organ continuo; in Valerio Bona’s Litanie della Madonna (1619)
there is also one. Fantasie were published by Gabriello Puliti (1624) for
violin or cornett and continuo; by Bartolomé de Selma y Salaverde (1638)
for bass instrument and continuo; and by Andrea Falconieri (1650/R) for
two violins, bass and continuo.
Fantasia, §1: To 1700
(iii) Spain.
Milán's El maestro (1536/R; ed. C. Jacobs, 1971), the earliest of the printed
vihuela books, includes 40 fantasias, reflecting Italian influence (as do his
pavans and sonnets). The more elaborate of them combine imitation, light
motivic counterpoint, plain and embellished chordal writing, runs and triple-
time sections; several fall into a category that Milán called fantasias de
tentos, designed to ‘try the vihuela’ and consisting of consonancias
(chordal passages, to be played broadly) intermingled with redobles
(running passages, to be played quickly). This is courtly music, but
presented with didactic intent; Milán progressed from simple to more
advanced pieces, providing notes on mode and tempo, as ‘a master would
with a pupil’.
A similar instructional approach is found in other Spanish fantasias. One
book of Narváez's Libros del Delphin (1538) is devoted to ‘fantasias in
various modes which are not so hard to play as those of the first book’
(MME, iii, 1945/R). As might be expected from a transcriber of Josquin and
Gombert, Narváez's fantasias make wider use of imitation than Milán's, and
less of chordal and scalic writing. There are points of structural interest,
such as recurrence of an initial subject or repetition of a concluding
passage. Mudarra, too, occasionally based a fantasia on one theme,
denoted in solmization syllables; his Tres libros (1546) include 23 fantasias
for vihuela and four for guitar (MME, vii, 1949), some being described as
‘easy’ or ‘to exercise the hands’. Particularly interesting is a burlesque
fantasia for vihuela ‘which imitates the harp in the style of Ludovico’ (a
reference to a former harpist to King Ferdinand II of Aragon). Several
fantasias in the second book are preceded by a short tiento.
Valderrábano's Silva de Sirenas (1547) devoted one book to fantasias,
beginning with those of the ‘first grade’ of difficulty (MME, xxii–xxiii, 1965).
Valderrábano distinguished between free (‘sueltas’) and parody
(‘acomposturadas’) fantasias; about half the 33 pieces belong to the latter
type. They include one ‘imitating in some passages’ extracts from
Gombert’s motet Aspice Domine, another ‘imitating from the middle
onwards’ the Benedictus of Mouton's Mass Tua est potentia. There are
also fantasias modelled upon other fantasias, such as one ‘imitating
another by Francesco da Milano’ (‘contrahecha a otra de Francisco
milanes’).
Pisador's Libro de música (1552) includes, besides two fantasias ‘for
beginners’, 24 ‘fantasias in all the modes upon points of imitation, of three
and four parts’. A curious feature of the first 12 is the depicting in red of
notes to be sung, with solmization syllables printed underneath; Pisador
suggested that this use of the voice ‘will be a very agreeable thing for the
person who plays and sings them’. Fantasias are prominent in Fuenllana's
Orphénica lyra (1554; ed. C. Jacobs, 1979). In one section, transcriptions
from Morales's masses are each followed by a related fantasia, designed
so as to ‘satisfy the ear and improve the hands’ of beginners unready to
master the transcriptions. In another, intabulations of motets by ‘famous
authors’ are similarly paired with fantasias, graded as ‘difficult’ or ‘easy’ and
intended to be ‘of benefit for exercising the hands and playing with a good
air’. The final section has fantasias for five-course vihuela and four-course
guitar as well as for the six-course instrument. The last vihuela book of the
century, Daza's El Parnasso (1576; RRMR, liv, 1982), also devotes a
section to fantasias, some of which contain ‘passages for exercising the
hands’. Like Pisador, Daza allowed for vocal participation by the player:
one part is picked out ‘with little dots, so that those who wish can sing it’.
The term ‘tiento’ (rather than fantasia) was preferred by such Spanish
organists as Cabezón and Pedro Vila; but Venegas de Henestrosa's Libro
de cifra nueva (1557) includes keyboard fantasias adapted from the vihuela
books of Narváez, Mudarra and Valderrábano (MME, ii, 1944). In 1565
Tomás de Santa María published his treatise Arte de tañer fantasia (‘the art
of fantasia playing, on keyboard, vihuela, or any instrument’); it deals with
various matters relating to instrumental improvisation, including imitative
counterpoint, from which ‘may be drawn great fruit and profit for the
fantasia’. In Trattado de glosas (1553) Diego Ortiz distinguished three
manners of improvising on the viol with harpsichord accompaniment:
The first is fantasia; the second, upon a cantus firmus; the
third, upon some composition. I cannot give an example of
fantasia, since each plays it in his own style, but I shall say
 what is requisite in playing it. The fantasia that the
harpsichord plays should be well-ordered chords, and the viol
should enter with elegant passages …. Some points of
imitation may be played, one player waiting on the other in
the way that polyphony is sung.
Fantasia, §1: To 1700
(iv) France.
The lute fantasia was transplanted to France in the second quarter of the
16th century, particularly through Alberto da Ripa (Albert de Rippe), who
went from Italy to the court of François I. None of his work was printed in
France during his life; but between 1552 and 1558 some 20 of his fantasies
for lute, and two for guitar, were published in Paris (CM, Corpus des
luthistes français, 1972). Earlier, fantasias had been published at Lyons by
the Venetian Bianchini (Blanchin) and the Milanese Paladino (Paladin).
Paladin's Premier livre (1553, 2/1560) includes ten, four being parodies
upon madrigals (Arcadelt) or motets (Claudin de Sermisy, Jacotin).
The first French composers to publish fantasias were Ripa's pupil
Guillaume Morlaye, in tablatures for lute and guitar (1550–58; CM, Corpus
des luthistes français, 1980); Grégoire Brayssing, whose guitar book
(1553) includes six, one being headed ‘des Grues’; Julien Belin (1556); and
Adrian Le Roy, in lute and guitar books of 1551. Le Roy's two lute fantasies
(CM, Corpus des luthistes français, 1960) are exuberant pieces, in which
passages of imitative texture give way to runs and style brisé. Later in the
century, the fantasia was cultivated by Jakub Reys (Jacques le Polonois),
lutenist to the French court, and some native composers. Antoine
Francisque's Le trésor d’Orphée (1600) has two fantaisies, rather like
elaborate préludes. J.-B. Besard's Thesaurus harmonicus (1603), which
devotes its liber secundus to fantasias, includes examples by the
Frenchmen Edinthon (CM, Corpus des luthistes français, 1974) and
Bocquet, as well as by masters such as Lorenzini, Bakfark, Długoraj,
Dowland and Reys; but Besard's own contributions to the genre are
confined to a Lachrimae fantasia in pavane form (evidently inspired by
Dowland) and diminutiones upon this and a Długoraj fantasia (CM, Corpus
des luthistes français, 1969). The fantaisie for lute fell out of use in 17th-
century France; there is one example in Denis Gaultier's Livre de tablature.
According to descriptions, Brayssingar's Tablature d'épinette (1536)
included fantasias; and fantasies were listed on the title-page of another
Tabulature d'espinette published at Lyons in 1560; both works are lost.
There survives a Fantasie sus orgue ou espinette of Costeley (F-Pn
fr.9152); and a four-part parody fantasia on Rore's Ancor che col partire by
Henri III's organist Nicolas de La Grotte (A-Wn 10110) is probably intended
for keyboard. It is clear that fantasias printed in early 17th-century
partbooks might also be played at the keyboard (Guillet spoke of aiding
‘those learning the organ’). The fantaisie of the Notre-Dame organist
Racquet (ed. F. Raugel, Les maîtres français de l'orgue, Paris, 1951),
which treats its subject sectionally in the manner of Sweelinck, and the
recently discovered organ fantasias of Louis Couperin (ed. G. Oldham,
forthcoming) are the chief survivors of what was evidently an ecclesiastical
repertory of some splendour. Of Couperin's organ pieces 26 are entitled
‘fantaisie’. A few have a soloistic bass line for trompette or cromorne, but
most (such as the Fantaisie sur la Tierce du Grand Clavier avec le
Tremblant lent) are fugues; there is also a Duretez fantaisie (fantasia di
durezze) dated 1650, full of searching suspended discords.
The extant repertory for ensemble is more substantial. In Musique de joye,
Moderne's collection for singing or ‘playing on spinets, violins or flutes’, the
phrase ‘Phantaisies Instrumentales’ was given to a group of recercari by
Willaert, Julio Segni and others, drawn mainly from Musica nova (RISM
154022; MRM, i, 1964). The name ‘fantasies’ is also given to Lassus's
textless two-part Cantiones in the Paris edition of 1578. Fantasias from the
late 16th and early 17th centuries include three by Claude Le Jeune (two in
four parts, and one in five that parodies Josquin's Benedicta es); these
were printed posthumously in his second book of Meslanges (1612). The
fantasias of Du Caurroy, another member of the chambre du roi, also
appeared posthumously in partbook format (1610, ed. P. Pidoux, 1975); of
the 42 pieces, in three to six parts, just under half are based on a freely
invented subject. 15 (styled ‘Fantasie sur … ’) have a cantus firmus
(generally a liturgical chant, but occasionally a French psalm or popular
tune), with points of imitation derived from the given melody; those on
Coeco clauditur and Alloquio privatur form a pair, and there is a suite of five
fantasies (starting in three parts and ending in five) on Une jeune fillette.
Seven (styled ‘Fantasie à l’imitation de … ’) treat a liturgical melody in
paraphrase fashion. One derives its subject matter from the rising and
falling hexachord. Also in 1610 appeared a set of 24 Fantaisies by Charles
Guillet ‘in four parts, set out according to the order of the 12 modes’, each
based on a principal subject (MMBel, iv, 1938); despite their didactic air,
Baron de Surgères is said to have listened to them enthusiastically.
Mauduit is stated by Mersenne to have written fantasias, but none survives.
Evidence suggests that such fantasias as these may have been performed
by viols with keyboard accompaniment.
Mersenne (MersenneHU) quoted a short phantasie for ‘les Cornets’ and
another (more properly a pavane) for ‘les Violons’ by Henri Le Jeune, and a
four-part Fantaisie en faveur de la quarte of De Cousu, as well as an
English example from Alfonso Ferrabosco (ii). In general the ensemble
fantasias of the mid-17th century tend to shun severity and take on the
melodiousness of the court air. Etienne Moulinié’s fifth book of Airs de cour
(1639) includes three four-part fantaisies for viols; Nicolas Métru’s 36
Fantaisies à deux parties, pour les violles (1642) are marked by dancing
counterpoint, generally ending with a reprise of the opening strain. By Louis
Couperin there survive two fantaisies a 5 for a consort of shawms (‘sur le
Jeu des Haubois’) dating from 1654, and two more, presumably for viols,
composed in 1654–5 (G. Oldham, 1960); there are also keyboard scores
for two courtly Fantaisies pour les violes by him (in F-Pc Rés. Vm7 674–5,
ed. D. Moroney, 1985). The polyphonic fantasia was largely forgotten in
France by the end of the 17th century, but the name survived to describe
pieces in which ‘the composer does not tie himself to a fixed scheme, or a
particular kind of metre’ (Brossard, 1705). Examples (including a canonic
Fantaisie en echo) occur in Marin Marais' Pièces à 1 & 2 violes (1686; ed.
J. Hsu, 1980).
Fantasia, §1: To 1700
(v) Netherlands.
The contribution of Phalèse's firm at Leuven and Antwerp to the publishing
of lute fantasias began in 1545 and continued with a series of anthologies
that, drawing on other publications, included examples by Francesco da
Milano, Narváez, Valderrábano, Ripa, Brayssing, Kargel, Bakfark and
others; cittern fantasias first appeared in 1568. Phalèse also published the
work of the Flemish lutenist Adriaenssen, whose Pratum musicum (1584)
and its sequel (1592) open with fantasias; in these there is generally a
fugal first section, leading to ebullient, improvisatory lute writing (MMBel, x,
1966). An idiosyncrasy of Phalèse's title-pages is the use of the Greek
word automaton (from automatos, ‘spontaneous’), as in the phrase
‘automata, quae Fantasiae dicuntur’ (Hortus musarum, 1552) or ‘automata
quae Fantasiae, vel Praeludia nuncupantur’ (Theatrum musicum, 1571).
Fantasias are found in Joachim van den Hove's Florida (1601), in the
Thysius Lutebook (NL-Lt 1666) and in Nicolas Vallet’s Le secret des muses
(1615, 1616); one of Vallet's is on a chromatic subject (La mendiante
fantasye), another uses thematic variation (CM, Corpus des luthistes
français, 1970).
The composition of keyboard fantasias on a principal, unifying subject was
nowhere pursued with such vigour and variety as in the Netherlands. Peter
Philips arrived there from England in 1588; his stylistic proximity in later
work to Sweelinck is shown by a fantasia (MB, lxxv, 1999, no.13) that
treats its subject in diminution and augmentation. Sweelinck's own
fantasias (Opera omnia, i/1, 1968) belong to three main types. The first is
the ostinato fantasia, in which a subject is constantly reiterated against
figuration of increasing brilliancy. The second (occasionally found also
under the name ricercar) may be illustrated by his Fantasia chromatica.
The chromatic theme is treated fugally, with first one counter-subject, then
another; in the next process it is augmented, surrounded by new points of
imitation and then accompanied by running semiquavers (coupled with
anticipations of the theme's diminished form); in the last, it is given in
diminution, first with running counterpoint, then in stretto, and finally in
double diminution over a pedal. In another fantasia of this type (Opera
omnia, i/1, no.3) a subject is presented together with its inversion, and both
forms are subsequently treated in augmentation and diminution. The third
type is the Fantasia auff die Manier von ein Echo, in which lighter, more
madrigalian counterpoint is succeeded by passages of echoed phrases
(exploiting contrasts of octave or manual) and toccata-like display.
Among the fantasias Bull probably composed after his flight to the
Netherlands in 1613 are his Fantasia op de fuge van ‘La Guamina’, which
derives wholly from its Italian point and includes a triple-metre
transformation; the fantasia on A Leona; another sopra Re re re sol ut mi fa
sol, whose theme is treated first as an ostinato and then (in diminution)
fugally; two parodies on Palestrina's Vestiva i colli; and the poignant
chromatic fantasia on a theme by Sweelinck, dated two months after the
latter's death (MB, xiv, 1960, 2/1967). Peeter Cornet's fantasias (CEKM,
xxvi, 1969) include a powerful Fantasia del primo tuono, in which a series
of sections introducing new points of imitation is unified by the return of the
initial subject in augmentation, and by a final section combining it in
diminution with other points. Both Cornet and Sweelinck wrote fantasias
sopra Ut re mi fa sol la (like Byrd and Bull, who do not seem however to
have entitled such pieces ‘fantasia’), in which the rising or falling hexachord
is treated in ostinato or fugal fashion. From the second half of the 17th
century come six fantasias in Anthoni van Noordt's Tabulatuur-boek van
psalmen en fantasyen (1659; UVNM, xix, 1896, 3/1976), which approach in
style and structure the late Baroque fugue, and the organ fantasias of
Kerckhoven (MMBel, ii, 1933).
Phalèse's Premier livre de danseries (1571) contains two anonymous
fantasias a 4, ‘suitable for all musical instruments’. Matthias Mercker's
Fantasiae seu cantiones gallicae (1604) are lost. ’T Uitnement kabinet
(RISM 164611, ed. R.A. Rasch, 1973–8) includes eight fantasias for two
violins and continuo by Borlasca, and two for solo recorder by de Vois.
Another Amsterdam anthology, XX. konincklycke fantasien (RISM
16487/R), is devoted to ‘royal fantasias’ for three viols by Daman (who went
to England from the Netherlands in the 1560s), Coprario, Lupo and
Gibbons.
Fantasia, §1: To 1700
(vi) Germany.
The only item in Hans Neusidler's two-volume Lautenbuch (1536; DTÖ,
xxvii, Jg.xviii/2, 1911/R) belonging explicitly to the title-page's category of
Fantaseyen is an extended, crudely improvisatory composition which,
despite its title (‘a very cunning Preambel or Fantasey, in which are played
many two-part and three-part double runs of various kinds, syncopations,
and many choice points of imitation’), makes only sparse use of imitative
technique. Italian influence dominates Hans Gerle's lutebook (1552), in
which fantasias of Dall’Aquila, Francesco da Milano, Ripa, Albuzio and
Borrono are reprinted in German tablature, all dubbed Preambel.
Subsequent lutebooks including fantasias are those of Benedikt de
Drusina, Wolff Heckel (both 1556), Jobin (1572), Matthäus Waissel (1573,
1592), Kargel (1574, 1586), Melchior Neusidler (1574), G.C. Barbetta
(1582), Adrian Denss (1594) and Reymann (1598). The parody type is
represented by Neusidler's Fantasia super ‘Anchor che col partire’; Denss
included fantasias by the Duke of Brunswick's lutenist, Huet. Particularly
interesting are nine fantasias on chorale melodies such as ‘Nu kom der
heiden Heylandt’ in Reymann's Noctes musicae. Kargel and Lais's Toppel
Cythar (1575) has two fantasias for cittern. Early 17th-century collections
include Johannes Rude's anthology Flores musicae (1600), Elias Mertel's
Hortus musicalis novus and G.L. Fuhrmann's Testudo gallo-germanica
(both 1615).
The earliest keyboard fantasias are found in German manuscripts. A
Fantasia in ut by Hans Kotter (a pupil of Hofhaimer), copied probably in
1513–14 (CH-Bu F.IX.22), prefaces imitative treatment of a point with a
short three-part introduction; its function was presumably similar to that of
pieces which Kotter called praeambulum or prooemium. Leonhard Kleber's
tablature (D-Bsb Mus.ms.40026), of about 1520, contains a Fantasy in fa
(ed. P. Schleuning, Mw, xlii-xliii, 1971, no.1) and another in re, using paired
imitation.
More than half a century separates these keyboard fantasias from the next
examples. Jacob Paix's Orgel Tablaturbuch (1583) has two phantasiae,
which have been likened to Italian polythematic recercari; Apel called
attention to an anonymous group (PL-GDp 300, R [Vv 123]) in toccata or
intonazione style; by H.L. Hassler there is an imposing Fantasia Ut re mi fa
sol la (DTB, vii, Jg.iv/2, 1903). The fantasias of Scheidt's Tabulatura nova
(1624; Werke, vi/1–2, 1953) brought together a variety of techniques. That
on Palestrina's Io son ferito takes a subject from the madrigal's opening
and combines it with three other subjects (two of them chromatic) in a ‘fuga
quadruplici’, ending with a ‘concursus et coagmentatio’ of all four in the
manner of Frescobaldi's fantasias. Sweelinck's influence is evident in the
Fantasia super Ut re mi fa sol la (the hexachord is laid out as an ostinato in
two-, three- and four-part texture, then freely worked in a four-part coda),
and in a fantasia from the second volume that subjects its theme to
augmentation and diminution, adorning it with counterpoint that includes an
‘imitatio violistica’. The magisterial fantasia on ‘Ich ruf zu dir’ treats each
phrase of the chorale melody first as a point of imitation, then as a migrant
cantus firmus; a similar plan underlies J.U. Steigleder's ‘Fantasia oder
Fugen manier’ setting of the Vater Unser melody in his Tabulatur Buch of
1627 (CEKM, xiii/1, 1968).
Other composers of keyboard fantasias include Paul Siefert, Scheidemann,
Matthias Weckmann and Froberger; J.E. Kindermann's Harmonia organica
(1645; DTB, xxxii, Jg.xxi–xxiv, 1913–24), contains a Fuga sive Fantasia.
Froberger is represented by eight examples, six being found in his
holograph of 1649 (A-Wn 18706); in some sources these also appear as
capriccio or fuga (DTÖ, viii, Jg.iv/1 and xxi, Jg.x/2, 1897–1903). One has
fugal working of a subject (with regular counter-subject) and of a
syncopated derivative of it (with new counter-subject); another treats its
subject first in duple, then in triple time, and finally combines augmented
and diminished forms of it; in others, both subject and counter-subject, or
subject and its inversion, may undergo conversion to triple time. In a
variation fantasia sopra Ut re mi fa sol la the theme appears ascending and
descending, in long and short note values, as cantus firmus and point of
imitation, with and without chromatic alterations, and in duple, triple and
compound times. A contrast to such fantasias ‘on a subject’ was provided
by Pachelbel and Johann Krieger. Two of Pachelbel's fantasias are in a
sonorous, non-fugal style with toccata-like embellishment (DTB, vi, Jg.iv/1,
1903); three others are in triple time, with openings suggestive of a French
chaconne (DTB, ii, Jg.ii/1, 1901). Johann Krieger even wrote a triple-time
fantasia in rondeau form, with eight-bar refrain, to introduce his Sechs
musicalische Partien (1697); and there is a similar example in his
Anmuthige Clavier-Übung of 1699 (DTB, xxx, Jg.xviii, 1917).
German fantasias for ensemble appear in several miscellaneous
collections: Thomas Mancinus (1588) included a fantasia duarum et
quatuor vocum, Friedrich Lindner (1589) a fantasia capriccio a 4 and
Heinrich Steuccius (1604) a phantasia a 5. Italian bicinia were termed
‘Ricercari, sive Fantasiae’ by Lindner (1591) and in Gumpelzhaimer's
Compendium musicae (2/1595), a book widely used in German schools.
Paul Luetkeman included ten fantasias a 5 and two a 6 suitable ‘for all
kinds of instruments’ in Newer lateinischer und deutscher Gesenge (1597);
one of these is based on the melody ‘Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ’,
another on ‘Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen’. Though dances and
canzonas were the chief ensemble forms of the early 17th century,
Wolfgang Getzmann (apparently emulating Guillet) published 24 four-part
Phantasiae sive cantiones mutae ad XII modos figurales in 1613, and
Johannes Schultz and Johann Staden included fantasias in their
collections of 1622 and 1625.
Fantasia, §1: To 1700
(vii) Poland.
An outstanding master of the polyphonic lute fantasia was the Hungarian
Bakfark, who from 1549 to 1566 was lutenist to the Kraków court. Of his
ten pieces in this genre only one is based on a vocal model, Clemens's
chanson Rossignolet. The remaining nine, however, are notable for the
way in which Bakfark combines sustained polyphonic thought with subtle
understanding of lute technique and tone-colour (Opera omnia, i-iii, 1976–
81; DTÖ, xxxvii, Jg.xviii/2, 1911/R). Both the fantasias a 4 in his Tomus
primus (1565), for example, end with impressive sections of imitative
counterpoint in four real parts. Later in the century the Venetian Diomedes
Cato also worked at Kraków (WDMP, xxiv, 1953, 2/1970); fantasias by him,
Długoraj (WDMP, xxiii, 1953, 2/1964; GMB, 150) and Jakub Reys (WDMP,
xxii, 1951) became well known through the anthologies of Besard,
Fuhrmann and Robert Dowland. Composers of keyboard fantasias
included Piotr Selechowski in the mid-17th century (CEKM, x, 1965–7).
The ensemble fantasia in Poland is represented by three examples in
Mikołaj Zieleński’s sacred Communiones totius anni (1611).
Fantasia, §1: To 1700
(viii) Great Britain.
Philip van Wilder, the Franco-Flemish lutenist who enetered Henry VIII's
service in the 1520s and died in London in 1553, has been identified as the
likely composer of one ‘Fantasie’ for lute found in late 16th-century English
sources (ed. in J.M. Ward: Music for Elizabethan Lutes, 1992, ii). The
earliest such piece by an English composer is Newman's, which survives
both as a keyboard ‘fansye’ in the Mulliner Book and as a lute piece (MB, i,
1951, 2/1954), and appears in part to be a parody of M.A. Cavazzoni's
Salve Virgo. Occurrence in Elizabethan lutebooks of fantasias by
Francesco da Milano (Ward counted 14) is confirmation of Italian influence;
this was experienced at first hand between 1562 and 1578 through Alfonso
Ferrabosco (i), whose interest in the genre seems to have done much to
establish it in England. Though probably not himself a lutenist of the first
rank, Ferrabosco composed fantasias for both lute and bandora (CMM,
xcvi/9, 1988). A fresh infusion of French influence came from English
editions of Adrian Le Roy's instruction books for the lute (1568 and 1574),
which include an improvisatory prelude entitled Petite fantasie dessus
l'accord du Leut (‘A little fantesie for the tunyng of the Lute’).
The first native Elizabethan lutenists for whom the fantasia was an
important medium of expression were Antony Holborne and John Dowland.
By Holborne there are four fantasies for cittern, of which the two in his
Cittharn Schoole (1597) can also be played by three melody instruments;
two for bandora, one of which (in the manner of some fantasias by
Ferrabosco and Byrd) breaks into a triple-time dance, followed by a coda;
and three for lute (HPM, i and v, 1967–73). The larger works have a series
of points, with idiomatic embellishment. The supreme English master of the
lute fantasia was John Dowland (ed. Poulton and Lam, 1974). One
‘fantasie’, published in Robert Dowland's Varietie of Lute-Lessons of 1610
(with others by Diomedes Cato, Reys, Huet, Lorenzini and Ferrabosco),
exists also in an early version, which Besard included in his Thesaurus; it
opens fugally, and ends with a paean of repeated notes in compound time.
The melancholy Forlorne Hope Fancye is based wholly on a descending
chromatic point, which in the final bars is set in diminution against running
counterpoint, not unlike Sweelinck's and Bull's chromatic fantasias; this
was one of two Dowland fantasias published in Mertel's Hortus musicalis
novus (1615), though it must date from about the turn of the century. Only
one lute fantasia each by Robert Johnson and Daniel Bacheler survives;
Robinson's The Schoole of Musicke (1603) includes a ‘Fantasie for two
Lutes’. The tradition of writing music of this kind for lute was kept alive in
Caroline England by a few composers including Cuthbert Hely and John
Wilson, whose series of fantasias or preludes for double-headed 12-course
lute (GB-Ob Mus.b.1) covers all the major and minor keys.
Distinctively English are the fantasias in tablature for three lyra viols
(mainly using the sonorous ‘eights’ tuning) by Alfonso Ferrabosco (ii) (MB,
ix, 1955, 2/1962, no.129), Coprario (RRMBE, xli, 1982) and Coprario’s
pupil William Lawes (MB, xxi, 1963, 2/1971, no.7). Ferrabosco's ‘Fancie’,
published in his Lessons (1609), is a transcription of one of his fantasias for
four viols (MB, lxii, 1992, no.15); Coprario's and Lawes's pieces are more
idiomatically conceived.
Apart from an arrangement of a viol piece, Ferrabosco the elder is credited
with one apparently original fantasia for keyboard (CMM, xcvi/9, 1988,
no.30; MB, lxvi, 1995, no.31). But it was Byrd, above all, who elevated the
fantasia to its eminent place in the keyboard music of Elizabethan England.
His exuberant approach is already fully displayed in the fantasia (MB, xxvii,
1969, 2/1976, no.13), probably an early composition, which, in the
Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, is prefaced with a short praeludium; in it, fugal
treatment of a series of points is succeeded by writing of a more playful
character, enlivened by passages of cross-rhythm, proportional changes
and fast runs. Another ‘fancie’ (MB, xxvii, no.25), of about 1590, passes
from its imitative opening section to an alman-like passage; then comes
more imitation, figurative display and (to close) a passage based on
phrase-repetition, involving sequence and imitation, which is repeated in a
varied form. Of Byrd's fantasias, only two maintain point-of-imitation style
throughout, and one of these is a transcription of a consort work. Two fine
examples in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book (MB, xxviii, 1971, 2/1976,
nos.62–3) include a section in coranto style immediately before the short,
decorated coda.
The virginalist's love of variation shows itself in the elaborated repeat of the
imitative opening of a Philips fantasia composed in 1582 (MB, lxxv, no.11);
Morley's fantasia (EKM, xii–xiii, 1959, pp.12–16) also takes on variation
aspects in its last section. Two examples by John Mundy are interesting
(Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, nos.2–3), the one unusually agile, the other
programmatic (depicting ‘faire wether’, ‘lightning’, ‘thunder’). Giles
Farnaby's fantasias (MB, xxiv, 1965), while comparatively artless, are not
without striking or humorous touches. Among Bull's fantasias written before
his flight to the Netherlands is a mainly two-part one which includes a
brilliant ostinato section in triple time followed by a flamboyant closing
section (MB, xiv, 1960, 2/1967, no.10). From Scotland there is an engaging
Fantassie by William Kinloch (ed. K.J. Elliott, Early Scottish Keyboard
Music, 1958, 2/1967).
The outstanding master of the keyboard fantasia during the Jacobean
period was Orlando Gibbons. His works are in general distinguished by
expressive, powerfully sustained counterpoint, in which dance sections and
proportional changes are avoided and virtuosity is restrained. A Fancy in
Gamut flatt, which at one point ‘leaves the key’ strikingly, represents a
seamless progress from its dolorous initial subject to the later, more
cheerful subjects (MB, xx, 1962, no.9). One Fantazia of foure parts was
printed for virginals in Parthenia (MB, xx, no.12); another fancy is
designated ‘for a double Orgaine’ (MB, xx, no.7). The last composer of the
genre was Tomkins, who continued to compose examples when in his 70s.
Three bear dates between 1646 and 1648 (MB, v, 1955, 2/1964, nos.22–3
and 25); the second of these is monothematic, the others each have a
series of three points. Of special fascination is the fancy ‘for two to play’
(MB, v, no.32).
Antecedents of the English consort fantasia may be found in the textless
‘songes’ of William Cornysh and Robert Fayrfax and (later) of Tye and
Tallis. The In Nomine should not be regarded as a species of fantasia,
though the two genres came to be cultivated in close relationship, and
Purcell loosely classified his In Nomines in GB-Lbl Add.30930 as
‘Fantazias’. Especially interesting are the fantasia-like compositions not
based on a cantus firmus that make extensive use of imitation, such as the
five-part and six-part ‘songes’ of Parsons and Robert White (MB, xliv, 1979,
nos.34–5, 37, 70). It is difficult to tell how much the emergence of the
ensemble fantasia owed to Italian influence, but the presence in English
sources of a four-part ‘Fantazy’ by Renaldo Paradiso, who was a member
of Elizabeth I's flute consort from 1568 until his death in 1570, suggests
that it might have been a tangible factor. This piece survives only in
versions for lute or keyboard, but is presumed to have been originally for
consort (MB, xlv, 1988, no.130; see also MB, lv, 1989, no.59).
An important manuscript of ‘In nomines and other solfainge songes for
voyces or Instrumentes’ of about 1578 (GB-Lbl Add.31390) contains only
one ‘phancy’, a five-part work by Edward Blancks. But one can also
deduce, from imperfect sources, the significant contributions made in the
early Elizabethan period by such men as Robert White, with his six
fantasias a 4 (MB, xliv, nos.6–11), and Alfonso Ferrabosco (i), with one
(MB, xlv, no.27). Again Byrd stands out as a central figure. It was above all
his masterly and varied essays in the genre, ranging from three parts to six,
that established it as the ‘chiefest kind’ of chamber music in England (Byrd
Edition, xvii, 1971). One of these is a five-part fantasy in which two of the
parts are in canon throughout. The series is crowned by two big six-part
works in whose highly individual structures such diverse elements as
romanesca bass and galliard measure, imitative counterpoint and
antiphonal homophony combine; these seem to have originated by the
early 1590s and later been revised, one being published (together with a
fantasia a 4) in Psalmes, Songs and Sonnets (1611). On a slighter scale,
Morley published nine little fantasies in his Canzonets to Two Voyces
(1595), imitations of pedagogic bicinia bearing Italian titles such as La
rondinella.
During the Jacobean and early Caroline periods viol playing was widely
cultivated at court, in cathedral closes and university colleges, and in the
homes of many gentlemen and noblemen. Among the composers who
responded to the resulting huge demand for fantasias for three, four, five or
six viols were Coprario, Dering, Michael East, Alfonso Ferrabosco the
younger, Thomas Ford, Gibbons, Thomas Lupo, Peerson, Thomas
Tomkins, John Ward and William White, and, from the next generation,
Charles Coleman, William Cranford, John Hingeston, Simon Ives, John
Jenkins, William Lawes, Richard Mico and John Okeover. Few of their
fantasias were printed, but collections of manuscript partbooks were built
up in many houses. Something of the pleasure taken in playing such music
is conveyed in a letter of 1658 from Lord North to Henry Loosemore, in
which he writes of a four-part fantasia by Ward (probably MB, ix, no.25)
‘that stirs our bloud, and raises our spirits, with liveliness and activity, to
satisfie both quickness of heart and hand’.
Fantasia style was profoundly influenced at the turn of the century by the
enthusiasm for Italian madrigals. Nearly every one of Coprario's five- and
six-part works (CMM, xcii, 1981; ed. R. Charteris, 1982) bears an Italian
title, such as In te mio novo sole, that sounds like the beginning of a
madrigal text. Although all but three are otherwise textless, they probably
originated as Italian madrigals by Coprario; it was as songs without words
for viols, however, that they became famous. Several five-part fantasias by
Ward (MB, lxvii, 1995) and Lupo similarly carry Italian titles. Such pieces
are perhaps best described as ‘instrumental madrigals’. Playing madrigals
on viols was not unusual in England: one set of partbooks in William
Lawes's hand (GB-Lbl Add.40657–61) contains examples by Marenzio –
even including the astonishing Solo e pensoso – and Monteverdi, stripped
of their words, alongside fantasias by Coprario, Lupo, Ward, Alfonso
Ferrabosco the younger, William White and Ives. There was also a trend
towards more idiomatic string writing, however. This was partly brought
about by the introduction of elements from the improvisatory tradition of
‘division’ playing, as can be seen in some of Lupo's six-part fantasias which
contain exuberant display by the two bass viols (ed. R. Charteris, 1993,
nos.9–10).
An account of the structural principles followed in consort fantasias is given
by Simpson (A Compendium of Practical Musick, 1667, pp.141–2), who
wrote:
Of Musick design'd for Instruments … the chief and most
excellent, for Art and Contrivance, are Fancies, of 6, 5, 4, and
3 parts, intended commonly for Viols. In this sort of Musick
the Composer (being not limitted to words) doth imploy all his
Art and Invention solely about the bringing in and carrying on
of … Fuges, according to the Order and Method formerly
shewed. When he has tryed all the several wayes which he
thinks fit to be used therein; he takes some other point, and
does the like with it: or else, for variety, introduces some
Chromatick Notes, with Bindings and Intermixtures of
 Discords; or, falls into some lighter Humour like a Madrigal, or
what else his own fancy shall lead him to: but still concluding
with something which hath Art and excellency in it.
A four-part fantasia by Coprario (MB, ix, no.20; ed. R. Charteris, 1991,
pp.105–11) may serve as a typical example: a spacious imitative opening
section, leading into a second section on a livelier point, a short grave
episode, the entry of another new point, and a concluding ‘double fuge’.
Triple-time interludes quite often occur in fantasias in a lighter vein,
especially trios, but without any attempt to relate sections by thematic
transformation. Gibbons, in his fantasias with a ‘double basse’ viol (MB,
xlviii, 1982, nos.16–19 and 24–5), followed Byrd in introducing passages
suggestive of dance or popular song.
A more architectonic approach to tonal and thematic organization was
favoured by Ferrabosco (ii). Sometimes he gave unity to a fantasia by
concentrating on a single point or bringing back an initial subject to crown a
design, and he made notable use of dimunition and augmentation as
structural devices. Such procedures suggest he had studied Italian
instrumental music. In matters of tonal planning Ferrabosco was
progressive, placing keys such as C minor and C major, or F major and F
minor, in bold antithesis (MB, ix, no.78; MB, lxii, no.1), or moving far away
from a key by gradually introducing more remote hexachords (MB, lxii,
no.11). His tour de force in this respect is a composition consisting of a
prima pars (Ut re mi fa sol la) and a secunda pars (La sol fa mi re ut) built
on a cantus-firmus scheme of transposed hexachords that necessitates
very rapid harmonic shifts and no less than seven enharmonic modulations
(ed. D. Pinto, 1992; see also field in Ashbee and Holman, 1996). Two
versions exist: Ferrabosco almost certainly composed the piece for four
viols and then expanded it for five. (This view conflicts with the thesis set
out by Lowinsky, 1968, that the five-part version is by Alfonso Dalla Viola
and originated in mid-16th-century Ferrara, but there is compelling
evidence for Ferrabosco's authorship of both versions and a date early in
the 17th century.) Enharmonic modulation may also be found at about the
same time in Ward's textless five-part Dolce languir (MB, lxvii, no.1), in one
of Tomkin's fantasias a 3 which incorporates a canon per tonos (MB, lix,
1991, no.12) and in Bull's Ut re mi fa sol la for keyboard (MB, xiv, no.17).
The outstanding masters of the viol fantasia in Caroline England were
Jenkins and William Lawes. Relaxed breadth, lyrical warmth and a sense
of natural growth are prevailing qualities in Jenkins's four-, five- and six-
part fantasias. Roger North wrote that Jenkins had ‘an unaccountable
felicity in his fuges, which he did not wear to the stumps, but timely went off
into more variety’. The fantasias are a culmination and synthesis of much
that went before, but Ferrabosco seems to have had an especial influence
on Jenkins's understanding of harmonic space, formal planning and the
value of contrapuntal devices. In his examples of ‘a whole fancy of one
point’, and also sometimes in fantasias of two large sections, Jenkins
employed augmentation, diminution and inversion more tellingly than any
English composer before Purcell. He also showed a fine feeling for key
relationships, and three fantasias a 4 modulate round the circle of fifths.
Dating the pieces is difficult, but the majority were probably written between
1615 and 1635 (Ashbee, 1992). Lawes's fantasias ‘for the Violls’ (ed. D.
Pinto, 1979; some also in MB, xxi), which match those of Jenkins in
breadth and grandeur of conception, may be seen as an imaginative
obverse to his ‘clever stile and air’. They are characterized by bold, ardent
gestures, adventurous textures and a fondness for rugged subjects and
strong-willed lines. Concertato opposition of small groups to one another or
to the full consort occurs in most of the six-part works. The part-writing is
less classically polyphonic than Jenkins's: textures are filled out by
ebullient figurative elaboration which at times results in clashes between
the viols and the organ score. One of Lawes's last fantasias, a passionate
six-part piece in C minor, written in about 1640, takes as its starting-point a
contorted subject extracted from his setting of Psalm vi, I am weary of my
groaning (Consort Sets, 1979, pp.132–7; MB, xxi, no.4a; see Pinto, 1995).
This was music for a courtly circle around which the events that led to the
English Civil War were unfolding.
Lawes was among the last composers to write for a six-part consort of two
treble, two tenor and two bass viols. Even among composers expert in five-
and six-part writing there had been a growing trend towards fantasias and
fantasia-suites for smaller ensembles that dispensed with the tenor viol.
There are fantasias for two trebles and two basses by Lupo (ed. R.
Charteris and J.M. Jennings, 1983, nos.4, 9, 10), Jenkins (MB, xxvi,
nos.15, 26), Lawes, Christopher Gibbons and Locke (MB, xxxii, 1972,
pp.100–03), and for one treble and two basses by Tomkins (MB, lix,
nos.14–15), Mico (MB, lxv, 1994, nos.5–10) and Jenkins. Several of Lupo's
three-part fantasias (ed. R. Charteris, 1987, nos.17–25) and Orlando
Gibbons's Fantazies of III parts (c1621–2; MB, xlviii, nos.11–15) are for two
trebles and bass. This scoring was taken up by Tomkins (MB, lix, nos.3–8),
Jenkins (MB, lxx, 1997, nos.29–49) and others, and it seems reasonable to
suppose that in such pieces violins increasingly replaced treble viols.
Sometimes a chamber organ played an integral part, as in the fantasia-
suites and bass viol duos of Coprario and the double bass fantasias of
Gibbons. The custom of doubling the consort of viols with an organ,
‘Evenly, Softly, and Sweetly Acchording to All’ (Mace, 1676/R), seems to
have grown up early in the century; organ reductions are found for many
Jacobean and Caroline fantasias for four to six parts, including autograph
parts by Lawes and Hingeston.
Coprario’s fantasia-suites for violins, bass viol and organ are one example
of how instrumentation may affect fantasia structure and style (see
Fantasia-suite); his fantasias for two bass viols and organ, which are as
much airs as fantasias, are another (MB, ix, nos.100–01; RRMBE, xli,
1982). Jenkins’s fantasias for two trebles and bass exhibit lively, violinistic
points and corant-like triplas; those for one treble and two basses exploit
the range and agility of the ‘division’ viol, whose virtuoso capabilities are
tested to the utmost in his fantasia-suites for the same instruments and in
Christopher Simpson’s Monthes and Seasons. In The Division-Viol
(2/1667), Simpson described such fancies as ‘beginning commonly with
some Fuge, and then falling into Points of Division; answering one another;
sometimes two against one, and sometimes all engaged at once in a
contest of Division: But (after all) ending commonly in grave and
harmonious Musick’. Simpson's naming of fantasias after the months of the
year may be compared with Michael East's use of emblematic Latin
mottoes, or the names of the nine Muses, for his printed fantasias of 1610
(EM, xxxiA, 1962) and 1638.
Thomas Mace spoke of ‘Fancies of 3, 4, 5, and 6 Parts to the Organ’ being
‘Interpos'd (now and then) with some Pavins, Allmaines, Solemn, and
Sweet Delightful Ayres’; this practice is borne out by Caroline sources.
Lawes grouped together viol fantasias, In Nomines and airs in the same
key, showing that he expected players to perform them as ‘setts’ or suites,
although there is not the sort of fixed, recurring pattern of movements that
is found in his fantasia-suites with violins, and there are some differences
in order between the various autographs. More surprisingly, he also
dignified his Royall Consort for two violins, two bass viols and two theorbos
(ed. D. Pinto, 1995) and his suites ‘for the Harpe, Violin, Basse Violl and
Theorbo’ (GB-Ob Mus.Sch.B.3 and D.238–40) by the inclusion of fantasias.
It was exceptional for plucked instruments to be given such independent
parts in polyphonic consort music. Jenkins, too, included two fantasias with
obbligato organ in his 32 airs (MB, xxvi). Hingeston regularly paired
‘fantazia’ and ‘almand’, as did Peerson. Some mid-century fantasias, on
the other hand, incorporate dance movements, such as those of John
Hilton and Christopher Gibbons for two trebles and bass (GB-Och 744–6
and 21), and William Young's Fansies of 3 Parts (GB-Lgc G.Mus.469–71).
Fantasias are the principal movements in Matthew Locke’s eloquent
consort collections, the schematic organization of which sometimes
involves prefixing a slow introduction to the ‘fantazie’ proper (MB, xxxi–
xxxii, 1971–2). Among the earliest are those for two bass viols (1652).
Those in the Flatt Consort (for various three-part groupings of viols), the
‘magnifick’ Consort of Fower Parts and the Broken Consort (for two trebles,
assuredly violins, and bass viol, with theorbo continuo) are more complex,
with exuberant fugal writing set off by passages of homophony or more
grave counterpoint, and clear contrasts of tempo and ‘humour’ between
sections.
After 1660 the English repertory of viol fantasias quickly fell into neglect ‘by
reason of the scarcity of Auditors that understand it’ (Simpson); one of
Locke's last fantasias was probably that written for an Oxford University
music meeting in 1665, and even his Broken Consort and Jenkins's
similarly scored fantasias and airs (with organ continuo) seem to have had
no imitators. Surpassing tribute was, however, paid by the youthful Purcell
to the tradition championed by Simpson and Locke, with three fantasias a
3, nine a 4 composed in June and August 1680 (a tenth, dated 1683, is
unfinished) and the five-part ‘fantazia upon one note’ (Works, xxxi, London,
1959, 2/1990). In form, instrumentation and style these are closely
patterned on fantasias of Locke; but Purcell's mastery of the techniques of
contrapuntal elaboration (augmentation, inversion, double and triple ‘fuge’)
and the highly expressive use of chromaticism and dissonance in his slow
sections give these last examples of the genre a unique brilliance and
intensity.
Fantasia
2. 18th century.
The freedom inherited from its Renaissance and 17th-century forebears
continued to be the primary characteristic of the 18th-century fantasia:
freedom of rhythm and tempo, extending to the omission of bar-lines;
unfettered exploitation of instrumental virtuosity; adventurousness in
harmony and modulation. Brossard (1703) described the fantasia as a
completely free genre, closely related to the capriccio; Mattheson (1739)
said that order and restraint, especially as exemplified in strict fugal texture,
are inappropriate to the form; Kollman (1796) considered the ideal fantasia
to be entirely improvised; in his opinion it lost some of the ‘true fire of
imagination’ when it had to be written down, as in a pedagogical work. It
must be pointed out, however, that fantasias of this period are far from
being ‘formless’, even when they sound most improvisatory. Indeed, just as
in the 16th and 17th centuries, many fantasias of the 18th century readily
took on the forms and styles of other contemporary genres (dance
movement, prelude, capriccio, invention, variation, toccata, sonata
movement, etc.).
In the 17th century the rich tradition of the fantasia had begun to decline on
the keyboard side in favour of the toccata, capriccio and prelude–fugue
pairing (especially in Germany), and on the instrumental ensemble side in
favour of the sonata and sinfonia (especially in Italy). By 1700 the number
of fantasias written for instrumental ensemble had dwindled to
insignificance, but the fantasia for keyboard was to remain important in the
18th century, mainly in Germany. J.S. Bach's fantasias were intended
primarily for the clavichord or harpsichord, C.P.E. Bach's primarily for the
clavichord, and Mozart's primarily for the piano. These three composers
sum up the essential history of the 18th-century fantasia.
J.S. Bach composed 15 known fantasias, not counting the three-part
inventions (‘Sinfonie’), which were originally called fantasias. None is
systematically fugal but nearly all use contrapuntal imitative procedures.
The fantasia of the Fantasy and Fugue in G minor (bwv542) is a north
German toccata of the Buxtehude type; that of the Chromatic Fantasy and
Fugue in D minor (bwv903) combines elements of both toccata and
recitative in three clearly delineated sections; that of the Fantasy and
Fugue in A minor (bwv904) is like a prelude, built on the ‘continuous
expansion’ (to use Bukofzer's term) of a long theme; the ‘Fantasie über ein
Rondo’ systematically and exhaustively elaborates on its 12-bar theme; the
Fantasy in C minor (bwv906) looks like a sonata form out of its proper era.
Bach's fantasias are often flamboyant with sweeping scales and arpeggios
and a rich scheme of modulation; but strict form and procedure prevail
nevertheless.
The fantasias of C.P.E. Bach are among his most important and most
representative works. Rhapsodic and improvisatory for the most part, they
are highly subjective pieces for the clavichord, on which the composer liked
to lose himself ‘in a sea of modulations’ (Reichardt); when he improvised
for Burney he grew ‘so animated and possessed, that he not only played
but looked like one inspired’. Bach's musical models were his father's
fantasias (for example the instrumental recitative in the Chromatic Fantasy)
and the opera performances he heard for 27 years at Frederick the Great’s
opera house in Berlin; his aesthetic outlook came out of the
Empfindsamkeit and Sturm und Drang movements and his specific
purpose was to declaim through the medium of pure instrumental music, to
approach the boundary between word and note without having recourse to
words.
C.P.E. Bach's well-known chapter on improvisation in his Versuch is
devoted entirely to the ‘free’ fantasia, the kind that ‘is unbarred and moves
through more keys than is customary in other pieces, which are composed
or improvised in metre’. Of his seven most important fantasias, all
composed between 1782 and 1787 (h277–8, 279, 284, 289, 291, 300),
only two (h289, 291) are barred throughout. The remaining 16 were
composed between 1753 and 1770; half of these are wholly or partly
unbarred (including the C minor Fantasia of 1753, one of the ‘Probestücke’
accompanying the Versuch). The barred fantasias generally resemble
sonata movements, solfeggios or even minuets; the wholly or partly
unbarred works are, of course, considerably more daring in harmony,
melody and abrupt changes of affect, making those outbursts and sudden
cessations which so intoxicated their first hearers. Yet the forms of these
more adventurous works are clear and disciplined: tripartite, with a barred
middle section; or rondo-like, but with the main theme generally returning in
different keys to be expanded in Baroque style; or, rarely (if short enough),
based only on a compelling harmonic progression.
Mozart was clearly rather indifferent to the fantasia as a discrete form,
though the fantasias in C minor k475 (1785) and D minor k397 (1782, ? or
later) are masterpieces of the genre. In k475 (intended to be performed as
an introduction to the Sonata in C minor k457) he showed no interest in
C.P.E. Bach's ‘free’ fantasia; it is barred throughout, very much in the
character of a sonata movement, with a thematic return near the end that is
prepared and emphasized in a true Classical fashion. k397 is closer to the
C.P.E. Bach style, containing unbarred sections. The version now generally
known ends with ten bars composed anonymously after the publication of
the first edition in 1804, in which the piece ends on a dominant 7th chord
and is described as a ‘fantaisie d’introduction … Morceau détaché’; these
features suggest that k397, too, might have been intended as an
introduction to a sonata. k383c and k396 are both incomplete; the
‘Phantasie’ k394 is really a prelude (followed by a fugue), and was so
named by Mozart himself; the two fantasias originally written for
mechanical organ, k594 and 608, are archaic imitations of French and
Italian overtures.
Other 18th-century composers were relatively less important to the
fantasia. Handel (in the one fantasia the Collected Edition has made
known), Mattheson and Telemann followed a galant homophonic style and
borrowed the forms of other instrumental genres; J.B. Bach, Muffat, J.C.
Kittel, J.L. Krebs and J.E. Bach showed more contrapuntal leanings, but
still borrowed frequently from other forms; most of W.F. Bach's ten
fantasias have clear plans resembling sonata movements and rondos,
sometimes using instrumental recitative and fugato episodes, but those
from near the end of his career approach incoherence. Among composers
who attempted to emulate C.P.E. Bach's fantasias were G.S. Löhlein, F.W.
Marpurg, C.G. Neefe and J.A.P. Schulz; Schulz's was the most successful
attempt. In his only fantasia so named, Haydn's governing principles are
sonata form and thematic integrity; only the comparatively unimportant
episodes are fantasia-like.
Fantasia
3. 19th and 20th centuries.
Characteristically, the fantasias of Beethoven both maintain and break with
tradition. The Fantasia of 1809 for piano (op.77) is in a single movement
and has contrasts of tempo and figuration (ex.2) that are clearly in the
empfindsamer Stil of C.P.E. Bach. On the other hand, in the two sonatas
‘quasi una fantasia’ (op.27) the term is associated for the first time with the
idea of large-scale unification of multi-movement works. In op.27 no.1
traditional forms are ignored to some extent, and there is some attempt to
de-emphasize the boundaries between movements; in op.27 no.2 (the
‘Moonlight’ Sonata) an initial slow movement in sonata form takes the place
of a sonata-allegro movement and a slow movement (which would be the
normal sequence of movements at the beginning of a sonata), and the
indication ‘attacca’ is used for the first time to join two ‘independent’ sonata
movements to each other. It was in the Fantasia for piano, chorus and
orchestra op.80 (1808), however, that Beethoven broke most strikingly with
tradition by introducing a chorus into a form that had been instrumentally
conceived for some 300 years.
For the Romantics the fantasia went beyond the idea of a keyboard piece
arising essentially from improvised or improvisatory material though still
having a definite formal design. To them the fantasia, like the slow
introduction to a sonata-allegro movement, a variation set or a fugue,
provided the means for an expansion of forms, both thematically and
emotionally. The sonata itself had crystallized into a more or less rigid
formal scheme, and the fantasia offered far greater freedom in the use of
thematic material and virtuoso writing. As a result the 19th-century fantasia
grew in size and scope to become as musically substantial as large-scale,
multi-movement works.
The four fantasias of Schubert (the Wandererfantasie and ‘Graz’ Fantasia
for piano solo, the Fantasia in F minor for piano duet and the Fantasia in C
for violin and piano) were the first to integrate fully the three- or four-
movement form of a sonata into a single movement. The Fantasia for violin
and piano is of particular importance because it anticipates the cyclical and
single-movement aspects of much of the music of Schumann and Liszt; it
also provides a historical link with Beethoven’s ‘cyclical’ sonatas of 1815–
16 (op.101 and especially op.102 no.1, whose opening Andante–Allegro
vivace it strikingly resembles in both key sequence and character of
themes), which are true progenitors of the Romantic fantasia. Schumann
originally gave the title Symphonische Phantasie to his Symphony no.4, a
work whose movements are joined together and clearly interrelated
thematically, and Liszt, an early champion of the Wandererfantasie (which
he arranged for piano and orchestra), frequently used an integrated single-
movement form in his symphonic poems and original piano compositions.
Schumann’s Fantasia in C op.17 (1836–8, originally designated grosse
Sonate), on the other hand, is divided into three movements. In both outer
movements, however, the initial modulation is to the subdominant, rather
than the dominant, thus contradicting an important principle of sonata-
movement construction. The work’s ‘slow-movement section’, in C minor
and marked ‘im Legendenton’, appears in the middle of the first movement,
interrupting the first attempt at a recapitulation in the movement; a second
attempt is delayed until after the end of this section and requires an initial
expansion in E major–C minor to make a smooth connection with it. The
middle movement, too, uses the subdominant as its contrasting key centre,
though this is entirely in line with its march-like character and its probable
model, the second movement of Beethoven’s op.101. The freedom of
Schumann’s form also enabled him to use transitional thematic materials in
both outer movements that are similar to each other though by no means
identical (ex.3).
To Schumann is also owed the Fantasiestück and, with such pieces, the
creation of an instrumental equivalent of the song cycle, in whose
development he also played a prominent role; the individual pieces in
works such as the Phantasiestücke (originally called Phantasien) op.12
and Kreisleriana op.16, though coherent musical structures in themselves,
are nevertheless better understood in the context of the entire work, and in
this respect more so than their early 19th-century antecedents,
Beethoven’s sets of bagatelles opp.119 and 126, Schubert’s Moments
musicaux and impromptus and Mendelssohn’s Lieder ohne Worte.
Brahms’s late sets of piano pieces, of which op.116 is entitled Fantasien,
take Schumann’s Phantasiestücke as their starting-point, though the
cyclical element is not as strong in Brahms’s pieces.
The term ‘fantasia’ was also applied to virtuoso pieces based on a given
theme or group of themes of a popular source – usually an opera, although
Bruch’s Schottische Fantasie for violin and orchestra uses folk melodies
collected on his travels in Britain. Most 19th-century virtuoso pianists wrote
operatic fantasias; many who had also composed a successful opera wrote
a fantasia on its most popular tunes. The form of the operatic fantasia often
resembles that of a theme and variations, with a freer introductory section
and an extended finale. Thalberg played an important role in its early
development with such works as the fantasias based on themes from
Moïse and Les Huguenots; but it is Liszt’s fantasias that are the
outstanding examples of the genre: those on Don Giovanni and Simon
Boccanegra may be counted among his more important piano
compositions. The operatic fantasia declined in popularity in the second
half of the century, although the music of Carmen did inspire a number of
works, and continued to do so well into the 20th century: Busoni’s
Kammerfantasie titled Sonatina super Carmen (1920) is the most
noteworthy.
In the early 20th century the fantasia became something of a retrospective
form, flourishing particularly in organ music based on chorales, themes by
Bach or the motif B–A–C–H. Liszt’s two principal organ works, the Fantasia
and Fugue on the chorale Ad nos, ad salutarem undam and the fantasia-
like Prelude and Fugue on B–A–C–H, are the antecedents of this
development; the chorale fantasias and free fantasias of Reger and the
Bach-inspired fantasias of Busoni (especially the Fantasia
contrappuntistica (1910), arranged for two pianos in 1922) are its most
important consequences. The outstanding example of the 20th-century
fantasia on original themes is Schoenberg’s Phantasy for violin with piano
accompaniment op.47 (the piano part was added after the composition of
the violin part and is sometimes omitted from performance). It is in one
movement, with an opening Grave serving as the introduction and later
reappearing between two scherzo-like sections and again before a
climactic ending. Britten’s Phantasy Quartet for oboe and strings is also a
single-movement work, which derives its rhythmic energy from a march-like
figure. Other British composers took up the fantasia on given themes as an
orchestral form, including Vaughan Williams (Fantasia on Greensleeves
and Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis) and Tippett (Fantasia
concertante on a Theme of Corelli).

See also Phantasy.

Fantasia

BIBLIOGRAPHY
source writings
MersenneHU
PraetoriusSM
L. de Milán: El maestro (Valencia, 1536/R); ed. C. Jacobs (University Park,
PA, 1971)
D. Ortiz: Trattado de glosas (Rome, 1553); ed. Max Schneider (Kassel,
1967)
M. de Fuenllana: Orphénica lyra (Seville, 1554); ed. C. Jacobs (London,
1979)
J. Bermudo: Declaración de instrumentos musicales (Osuna, 1555/R)
P. de Tyard: Solitaire second, ou Prose de la musique (Lyons, 1555)
H. Finck: Practica musica (Wittenberg, 1556, enlarged 2/1556/R)
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C. Sebastiani: Bellum musicale (Strasbourg, 1563)
T. de Santa María: Arte de tañer fantasia (Valladolid, 1565/R)
E. Bottrigari: Il desiderio (Venice, 1594/R)
T. Morley: A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke (London,
1597/R); ed. R.A. Harman (London, 1952, 2/1963)
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A.F.C. Kollmann: An Essay on Musical Harmony (London, 1796)
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modern studies
General
MeyerECM
MGG2 (T. Schipperges, D. Teepe)
H. Schenker: ‘Die Kunst der Improvisation’, Das Meisterwerk in der Musik,
i (Vienna, 1925), 9–40
M. Reimann: ‘Zur Deutung des Begriffs “Fantasia”’, AMw, x (1953), 253–
74
H.H. Eggebrecht: Studien zur musikalischen Terminologie (Mainz, 1955,
2/1968)
G.G. Butler: ‘The Fantasia as Musical Image’, MQ, lx (1974), 602–15
To 1700
ApelG
BrownI
DoddI
MeyerMS
ReeseMMR
O. Deffner: Über die Entwicklung der Fantasie für Tasteninstrumente bis
J.P. Sweelinck (Kiel, 1928)
M. Lefkowitz: The English Fantasia for Viols (thesis, U. of Southern
California, 1951)
W. Coates: ‘English Two-Part Viol Music, 1590–1640’, ML, xxxiii (1952),
141–50
H.H. Eggebrecht: ‘Terminus “Ricercar”’, AMw, ix (1952), 137–47
J.M. Ward: ‘The Use of Borrowed Material in 16th-Century Instrumental
Music’, JAMS, v (1952), 88–98
J.M. Ward: The Vihuela de Mano and its Music (1536–1576) (diss., New
York U., 1953)
D. Launay: ‘La fantaisie en France jusqu’au milieu du XVIIe siècle’, La
musique instrumentale de la Renaissance: Paris 1954, 327–39
R.M. Murphy: Fantasia and Ricercare in the Sixteenth Century (diss., Yale
U., 1954)
T. Dart: ‘Jacobean Consort Music’, PRMA, lxxxi (1954–5), 63–75
P. Evans: ‘Seventeenth-Century Chamber Music Manuscripts at Durham’,
ML, xxxvi (1955), 205–23
C. Arnold and M. Johnson: ‘The English Fantasy Suite’, PRMA, lxxxii
(1955–6), 1–14
R.M. Murphy: ‘Fantaisie et recercare dans les premières tablatures de luth
du XVIe siècle’, Le luth et sa musique: Neuilly-sur-Seine 1957, 127–42
A. Cohen: The Evolution of the Fantasia and Works in Related Styles in
the Seventeenth-Century Instrumental Ensemble Music of France and
the Low Countries (diss., New York U., 1959)
E.F. Nelson: An Introductory Study of the English Three-Part String Fancy
(diss., Cornell U., 1960)
G. Oldham: ‘Louis Couperin: a New Source of French Keyboard Music of
the mid-17th Century’, RMFC, i (1960), 51–9
J.M. Richards: A Study of Music for Bass Viol Written in England in the
Seventeenth Century (diss., U. of Oxford, 1961)
H.C. Slim: The Keyboard Ricercar and Fantasia in Italy, c1500–1550
(diss., Harvard U., 1961)
A. Cohen: ‘A Study of Instrumental Ensemble Practice in 17th-Century
France’, GSJ, xv (1962), 3–17
A. Cohen: ‘The Fantaisie for Instrumental Ensemble in 17th-Century
France’, MQ, xlviii (1962), 234–43
R.S. Douglass: The Keyboard Ricercar in the Baroque Era (diss., North
Texas State U., 1963)
W.E. Hultberg: Sancta Maria's ‘Libro llamado Arte de tañer fantasia’: a
Critical Evaluation (diss., U. of Southern California, 1965)
J. Ward: ‘Parody Technique in 16th-Century Instrumental Music’, The
Commonwealth of Music, in Honor of Curt Sachs, ed. G. Reese and R.
Brandel (New York, 1965), 202–28
G.L. Zwicky: The Imitative Organ Fantasia in the Seventeenth Century
(DMA diss., U. of Illinois, 1965)
C. MacClintock: ‘The “Giaches Fantasias” in MS Chigi Q VIII 206: a
Problem in Identification’, JAMX, xix (1966), 370–82
W. Apel: ‘Solo Instrumental Music’, The Age of Humanism, 1540–1630,
NOHM, iv (1968), 602–708
W. Breig: ‘Die Lübbenauer Tabulaturen Lynar A1 un A2: eine
quellenkundliche Studie’, AMw, xxv (1968), 96–117, 223–36
E.E. Lowinsky: ‘Echoes of Adrian Willaert's Chromatic “Duo” in Sixteenth-
and Seventeenth-Century Compositions’, Studies in Music History:
Essays for Oliver Strunk, ed. H. Powers (Princeton, NJ, 1968), 183–
238; rev. in E.E. Lowinsky: Music in the Culture of the Renaissance,
ed. B.J. Blackburn (Chicago, 1989), ii, 699–729
E.H. Meyer: ‘Concerted Instrumental Music’, The Age of Humanism, 1540–
1630, NOHM, iv (1968), 550–601
F. Baines: ‘Fantasias for the Great Double Base’, Chelys, ii (1970), 37–8
C.D.S. Field: The English Consort Suite of the Seventeenth Century (diss.,
U. of Oxford, 1970)
D. Kämper: Studien zur instrumentalen Ensemblemusik des 16.
Jahrhunderts in Italien, AnMc, no.10 (1970)
J.T. Johnson: The English Fantasia-Suite, ca. 1620–1660 (diss., U. of
California, Berkeley, 1971)
J. Caldwell: English Keyboard Music before the Nineteenth Century
(Oxford, 1973)
W. Kirkendale: ‘Ciceronians versus Aristotelians on the Ricercar as
Exordium, from Bembo to Bach’, JAMS, xxxii (1979), 1–44
D. Pinto: ‘The Fantasy Manner: the Seventeenth-Century Context’, Chelys,
x (1981), 17–28
J. Griffiths: The Vihuela Fantasia: a Comparative Study of Forms and
Styles (diss., Monash U., 1983)
J.-M. Vaccaro: ‘La fantaisie chez les luthistes français au XVIe siècle’,
AnM, xxxviii (1983), 139–45
J.M. Meadors: Italian Lute Fantasias and Ricercars Printed in the Second
Half of the Sixteenth Century (Ann Arbor, 1984)
A.J. Ness: ‘The Siena Lute Book and its Arrangements of Vocal and
Instrumental Part-Music’, Lute Symposium: Utrecht 1986, 30–49
J. Wess: ‘Musica transalpina, Parody, and the Emerging Jacobean Viol
Fantasia’, Chelys, xv (1986), 3–25
A. Newcomb: ‘The Anonymous Ricercars of the Bourdeney Codex’,
Frescobaldi Studies, ed. A. Silbiger (Durham, NC, 1987), 97–123
G. Strahle: Fantasy and Music in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century
England (diss., U. of Adelaide, 1987); abstract in Chelys, xvii (1988),
28–32
A. Edler: ‘Fantasie and Choralfantasie: on the Problematic Nature of a
Genre of Seventeenth-Century Organ Music’, Organ Yearbook, xix
(1988), 53–66
D. Teepe: Die Entwicklung der Fantasie für Tasteninstrumente im 16. und
17. Jahrhundert: gattungsgeschichtliche Studie (Kassel, 1990)
R. Rasch: ‘The Konyncklycke fantasien Printed in Amsterdam in 1648:
English Viol Consort Music in an Anglo-Spanish-Dutch Political
Context’, A Viola da Gamba Miscellany: Utrecht 1991, 55–73
A. Ashbee: The Harmonions Musick of John Jenkins, i: The Fantasias for
Viols (Surbiton, 1992)
D.N. Bertenshaw: The Influence of the Late 16th-Century Italian
Polyphonic Madrigal on the English Viol Consort Fantasy (diss., U. of
Leicester, 1992)
C.D.S. Field: ‘Consort Music I: up to 1660’, The Blackwell History of Music
in Britain, iii: The Seventeenth Century, ed. I. Spink (Oxford, 1992),
197–244
M. Spring: ‘Solo Music for Tablature Instruments’, ibid., 367–405
M. Tilmouth and C.D.S. Field: ‘Consort Music II: from 1660’, ibid., 245–81
D. Pinto: ‘Further on a Fantasia by “Giaches”’, ML, lxxv (1994), 659–60
K. Elcombe: ‘Keyboard Music’, The Blackwell History of Music in Britain, ii:
The Sixteenth Century, ed. R. Bray (Oxford, 1995), 210–62
J. Harper: ‘Ensemble and Lute Music’, ibid., 263–322
D. Pinto: For the Violls: the Consort and Dance Music of William Lawes
(London, 1995)
W. Syre: ‘Die norddeutsche Choralphantasie: ein gattungsgeschichtliches
Phantom?’, Musik und Kirche, lxv (1995), 84–7
A. Ashbee and P. Holman, eds.: John Jenkins and his Time: Studies in
English Consort Music (Oxford, 1996)
A. Ashbee: ‘The Late Fantasias of John Jenkins’, Chelys, xxv (1996–7),
53–64
M. Spring: ‘The English Lute “Fantasia Style” and the Music of Cuthbert
Hely’, Chelys, xxv (1996–7), 65–77
R. Thompson: ‘The Sources of Purcell’s Fantasias’, Chelys, xxv (1996–7),
88–96
R. Bellingham: ‘Alfonso Ferrabosco II: the Art of the Fantasia’, Chelys,
xxvi (1998), 1–25
D. Bertenshaw: ‘Madrigals and Madrigalian Fantasies: the Five-Part
Consort Music of John Coprario and Thomas Lupo’, Chelys, xxvi
(1998), 26–51
V. Brookes: ‘The Four-Part Fantasias of John Ward: One Composer or
Two?’, Chelys, xxvi (1998), 52–68
C. Cunningham: ‘Variety and Unity in the Fantasias of John Coprario’,
Chelys, xxvi (1998), 69–77
18th century
R.S. Douglass: The Keyboard Ricercar in the Baroque Era (diss., North
Texas State U., 1963)
H.R. Chase: German, Italian, and Dutch Fugal Precursors of the Fugues in
the ‘Well-Tempered Clavier’, I, 1600–1722 (diss., Indiana U., 1970)
J. Caldwell: English Keyboard Music before the Nineteenth Century
(Oxford, 1973)
P. Schleuning: Die freie Fantasie: ein Beitrag zur Erforschung der
klassischen Klaviermusik (Göppingen, 1973)
W. Kirkendale: ‘Ciceronians versus Aristotelians on the Ricercar as
Exordium, from Bembo to Bach’, JAMS, xxxii (1979), 1–44
H. Steger: ‘Gedanken über den Fantasie-Begriff in der Musik des 18. and
19. Jahrhunderts’, Gedenkschrift Hermann Beck, ed. H. Dechant and
W. Sieber (Laaber, 1982), 143–50
19th and 20th centuries
C.R. Suttoni: Piano and Opera: a Study of the Piano Fantasias Written on
Opera Themes in the Romantic Era (diss., New York U., 1973)
J. Parker: The Clavier Fantasy from Mozart to Liszt: a Study in Style and
Content (diss., Stanford U., 1974)
H. Steger: ‘Gedanken über den Fantasie-Begriff in der Musik des 18. und
19. Jahrhunderts’, Gedenkschrift Hermann Beck, ed. H. Dechant and
W. Sieber (Laaber, 1982), 143–50
G. Fydich: Fantasien für Klavier nach 1800 (diss., U. of Frankfurt, 1991)

For further bibliography see entries on individual composers.