fantasia

noun

1. (also, figuratively)A form of instrumental composition with a free structure and improvisational characteristics; specifically, one combining a number of well-known musical pieces.

   “The Fantasia, by Mr. [Pio] Cianchettini, is upon [Gioachino] Rossini's air "Tu che accendi," so often made the theme of piano forte lessons. […] Mr. Cianchettini's imagination is very vivid and full, and we know of nothing more florid or requiring lighter and more delicate touching than this Fantasia.”

   “Miss [Eleanor Margaret] Geary is a brilliant pianiste, who make light of the modern difficulties set down for the instrument: her performance of [Theodor] Döhler's Anna Bolena fantasia was achieved without apparent effort, and won considerable applause; […] Miss E[lizabeth] Geary is a vocalist, possessing a sweet and flexible voice, […] this young lady also played a fantasia on the concertina very adroitly.”

   “The little Italian party, before alluded to, had collected around the piano. The white and plump fingers of the gay and black-eyed daughter of the Roman marchioness were tripping lightly up and down the octaves of the instrument, and her little tastefully arranged head was merrily dancing from side to side, keeping time to the half-improvised phantasia, which trickled like a wayward stream from her hands.”

   “She [Josepha Barbara Auernhammer] published subsequently many works of her own, (in all 63,) which, as well as her play, especially the extempore phantasias, were distinguished by much delicate feeling and a vivid imagination.”

   “In classical music there are, as the analytical programs tell us, first subjects and second subjects, free fantasias, recapitulations, and codas; there are fugues, with counter-subjects, strettos, and pedal points; there are passacaglias on ground basses, canons ad hypodiapente, and other ingenuities, which have, after all, stood or fallen by their prettiness as much as the simplest folk-tune.”

2. (broadly)Any work which is unstructured or comprises other works of different genres or styles.

   “It is, however, a ceremony of immense antiquity, and the chief civil festival of the year among the Arabs, who love nothing more dearly than a "phantasia" of this sort.”

   “When, at the head-centre, the lady demonstrator, armed with a Brobdingnagian whalebone needle, threaded with a bright red cord, executed herringboned fantasias on a canvas frame resembling a violin stand, it all looked easy enough.”

   “Consequently 'War in the Air' means social destruction instead of victory as the end of war. It not only alters the methods of war but the consequences of war. After all that has happened since this fantasia of possibility was written, I do not think that there is much wrong with this thesis.”

   “[The Warrior's Barrow (Kjæmpehøjen)] admirably conformed to his employers' National-Romantic aims. This is equally true of the four new plays with which [Henrik] Ibsen honoured his contract: St. John's Night) (Sancthansnatten, 1853), a phantasia having a good deal in common with [William] Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream […]”

   “These are the years in which she [Ellen Terry] begins to sign her letters in a phantasia of different names.”

3. A traditional festival of the inhabitants of the Maghreb (in northwest Africa) featuring exhibitions of horsemanship.

   “As for the wonderful feats of horsemanship one hears of or sees among the Arabs, they are due to sharp spurs like razors, and to bits strong enough to break an animal's jaw. […] The favourite feat at their fantasias or fêtes of suddenly pulling up their horses short while at a hand-gallop, ruins their legs, and there is in consequence scarcely a horse to be seen whose hind-legs are not spavined.”

   “These fantasias consist of sham fights, the men riding at full gallop at one another, and firing as they pass; the play might have ended more seriously than was intended, for one Spahi had unknowingly a ball in his rifle, which whizzed close to his enemy's head, but the man never winced, or took any more notice than if it had been blank cartridge, and the fantasia continued as before.”

   “Everyone was enjoying himself. Political differences seemed to be forgotten. The King was smarter than anyone realized. Bang! Bang! Bang! The fantasias went on and on, the Berber warriors in white, standing up in their silver stirrups on bay, gray, black, and chestnut stallions, firing their silver-chased rifles in perfect unison into the air. […] The men cheered and the women ululated as each successful fantasia run was completed.”

   “Mimi was keen to ride a berber horse and Said arranged a Fantasia especially for us – or was it for her? – with the best riders around Marrakech.”

   “However, in the last few years, the stud farms in Morocco and elsewhere in the world have rediscovered the qualities of the barb [Barbary horse], which, in Berber tradition, remains the king of the "fantasias", a festival that is also becoming fashionable once again.”

name

1. A surname from Italian.