Faà di Bruno, Giovanni Matteo [Horatio, Orazio] Fabbri, Anna Maria

(i) Terminology.

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.