Afantasia (Italian:[fantaˈziːa]; also English: fantasy, fancy, fantazy, phantasy, German: Fantasie, Phantasie, French: fantaisie) is a musical composition with roots in improvisation. The fantasia, like the impromptu, seldom follows the textbook rules of any strict musical form.
History
The term was first applied to music during the 16th century, at first to refer to the imaginative musical "idea" rather than to a particular compositional genre. Its earliest use as a title was in German keyboard manuscripts from before 1520, and by 1536 is found in printed tablatures from Spain, Italy, Germany, and France. From the outset, the fantasia had the sense of "the play of imaginative invention", particularly in lute or vihuela composers such as Francesco Canova da Milano and Luis de Milán. Its form and style consequently ranges from the freely improvisatory to the strictly contrapuntal, and also encompasses more or less standard sectional forms.[1] One of the most important composers in the development of the fantasia was Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. His greatest work in this style is the fantasia cromatica (a specific form called "chromatic fantasia"), which in many ways forms a link between the Renaissance and the Baroque.
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Tovey, Donald Francis. 1956. The Forms of Music, with an editorial preface by Hubert J. Foss. London: Oxford University Press; Cleveland: World Publishing Co.; New York: Meridian Books. ISBN9780529020857.
Antcliffe, Herbert. 1920. "The Recent Rise of Chamber Music in England". Musical Quarterly 6, no. 1 (January): 12–23.
Meyer, Ernst Hermann. 1946. English Chamber Music. London: Lawrence & Wishart. Reprinted, New York: Da Capo Press, 1971. ISBN0-306-70037-9. Reference on the early English fantasy (fantazy, fantasie, fantasia.).