Fantasia (musical form)

The fantasia (also Eng. fantasy, Ger. fantasie, Fr. fantaisie) is a musical composition with its roots in the art of improvisation. Because of this, it seldom approximates the textbook rules of any strict musical form.

In the Baroque and Classical music eras, a fantasia was typically piece for keyboard instruments with alternating sections of rapid passagework and fugal texture. From the Baroque period, J. S. Bach's Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, BWV 903, for harpsichord, and Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV 542, for organ, are examples; for an example from the Classical period, see Mozart's Fantasia in D minor, K397 (see Köchel, for fortepiano.

In the Romantic period, two contradictory trends greatly affected the fantasia: one was the decline of formal improvisation as a test of the compositional technique; the other was the move by composers toward freer forms. Chopin's Fantasy in F minor/A flat major, op. 49, combines various keyboard textures of the stile brillante with the classical sonata paradigm, resulting in a work of unorthodox but sophisticated form. Schumann's numerous fantasy pieces are character pieces on a smaller scale, often bearing descriptive titles.