FANTASIA, a name in music for a composition possessing little structural form, and having the general style of an improvi sation; 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 composi tions, based on the madrigal, for several instruments. Fantasias appear as compositions of a distinctive type in Bach's works, in the case of which they frequently serve as preludes to fugues, e.g., the "Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue." Brahms used the term for some of his shorter piano pieces, and it has also been applied on occasion to much larger and more elaborately organized works, alike for the piano and for the orchestra, such as Schubert's "Wanderer" fantasia, Schumann's Op. 17 and Tchaikovski's symphonic fantasia Francesca da Rimini.
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.