A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Fantasia

by Hubert Parry

FANTASIA is a term of very respectable antiquity as applied to music, for it seems to be sufficiently established by both Burney and Hawkins in their Histories that it was the immediate predecessor of the term Sonata, and shares with the term Ricercar the honour of having been the first title given to compositions expressly for instruments alone. It seems itself to have been a descendant of the madrigal; for when madrigals, accompanied as they commonly were by instruments playing the same parts with the voices, had to a certain extent run their course as the most popular form of chamber compositions, the possibility of the instruments playing the same kind of music without the voices was not far to seek. Hawkins remarks that the early Fantasias 'abounded in fugues and little responsive passages and all those other elegances observable in the structure and contrivance of the madrigal.' They were written for combinations of various instruments, such as a 'Chest of Viols,' and even for five 'Cornets' of an ancient kind, seemingly something like a family of modern serpents. There are examples of this kind by very ancient English composers, and some also for the 'Virginals' by Bird and Gibbons in 'Parthenia.' They seem to have been a very dry species of composition, and Dr. Burney quotes Simpson's 'Compendium' to the intent that in the year 1667 'this style of music was much neglected because of the scarcity of auditors that understand it, their ears being more delighted with light and airy music.'

In the works of Bach there are a great number of Fantasias both as separate works and as the first movement to a Suite, or conjoined with a Fugue. In the latter capacity are two of the finest Fantasias in existence, namely that in A minor called 'Grosse Fantasie und Fuga' (Dörffel, 158), and that in D minor, commonly known as the 'Fantasia cromatica.' Among his organ works also there are some splendid specimens, such as Fantasia et Fuga in G minor (Dörffel, 798), and a Fantasia of considerable length in G major, constituting a complete work in itself (Dörffel, 855). Among the works of his sons and other contemporaneous German masters are also many specimens of Fantasias. Some of them are very curious, as the last movement of a Sonata in F minor by Philip Emmanuel Bach, published in Roitzsch's 'Alte Klavier Music,' in the greater part of which the division by bars is entirely dispensed with; and the same peculiarity distinguishes a Fantasia by Johann Ernst Bach which is published in the same collection. Two of those by Friedemann Bach (in A and C) have been revived at the Monday Popular Concerts. Mozart produced some fine examples of Fantasias, Beethoven apparently only two distinctly so called, namely Opus 77 and the Choral Fantasia; and two of the Sonatas (op. 27) are entitled 'quasi una Fantasia,' which implies some irregularity of form. In more modern times, apart from Schumann's fine example dedicated to Liszt (op. 17), the name has gone somewhat into disrepute, having been commonly employed to label vulgar effusions which consist of brilliant passages connected with popular airs strung together into a piece for the mere display of finger cleverness. But in these days of revivals there seems to be no reason why the name should not be given to more honourably conceived compositions, and yet play a rôle of some dignity in modern instrumental music; and the very fact that there are no rules for its formal construction would seem to be an inducement to composers of an independent turn of mind.

[ C. H. H. P. ]