, 1903), and George Crumb
gave the designation ‘fantasy-pieces’ to his Makrokosmos for amplified
piano (1972–3).(Ger.: ‘fantasy piece’).
A short piece, usually for piano and generally one of a set of three to eight, in which the ‘fancy’ of the composer is a main factor in the form and progress of the musical movement, although the opening idea is always recapitulated at the end. It is related to the 19th-century fantasia (see Fantasia, §III) but may be distinguished from it by its narrower scope. The term was used first in a literary context by E.T.A. Hoffmann; a character named Kreisler in his Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier (1814–15) was the inspiration for Schumann’s Kreisleriana op.16 (1838), which is subtitled ‘eight fantasias’. Hoffmann’s ‘pieces’ may also have inspired Schumann’s first set of Phantasiestücke op.12 (1837), whose original title Phantasien was changed probably to distinguish the character of these pieces from that of his three-movement Fantasia in C op.17. As well known as any of Schumann’s works, they show the composer’s fancy at its most lyrical and delicate. The pieces for clarinet and piano op.73 and for piano trio op.88 are also Fantasiestücke.
The
distinction between fantasia and Fantasiestück was not always maintained
later in the 19th century: Liszt’s Phantasiestück on themes from Rienzi
(1859) is a fantasia on operatic themes, while Brahms’s Fantasien op.116
(1892), comprising three capriccios and four intermezzos, are close in spirit
to Schumann’s op.12 and as a group not really different from his other sets of
piano pieces (op.76 and opp.117–19). With later composers the form did not
prove durable, although there are examples by Busoni (Fantasia in modo
antico op.33b no.4, 1896) and Balakirev (Phantasiestück in D, 1903), and George Crumb
gave the designation ‘fantasy-pieces’ to his Makrokosmos for amplified
piano (1972–3).
MAURICE J.E. BROWN