FANTASIA (

See also:

• ITALIAN

Italian for " fantasy," a causing to be seen, from

See also:

• GREEK
• GREEK, ETRUSCAN AND

Greek, 4aivew, to show)  , a name in music sometimes loosely used for a composition which has little structural form, and appears to be an improvization; and also for a combination or medley of familiar airs connected together with original passages of more or less brilliance . The word, however, was originally applied to more formal compositions, based on the madrigal, for several instruments . Fantasias appear as distinct compositions in Bach's works, and also joined to a fugue, as in the " Great Fantasia and Fugue " in A minor, and the " Fantasia cromatica " in D minor . Brahms used the name for his shorter piano pieces . It is also applied to orchestral compositions " not long enough to be called symphonic poems and not formal enough to be called overtures " (Sir C . Hubert Parry, in Grove's Dictionary of Music, ed . Igoe) . The Italian word is still used in Tunis, Algeria and Morocco, with the meaning of " showing off," for an acrobatic exhibition of horsemanship by the Arabs . The riders fire their guns, throw them and their lances into the air, and catch them again, standing or kneeling in the saddle, all at a full gallop .