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

(v) Netherlands.

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.

(vi) Germany.

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).

(vii) Poland.

(viii) Great Britain.

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.

2. 18th century.

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.

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

J. Bermudo: Declaración de instrumentos musicales (Osuna, 1555/R)

modern studies

General

To 1700

18th century

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.

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