The ricercar and fantasia

An investigative journey into two, perhaps synonymous and very popular, lute compositions of the Renaissance period.

It all begins with a question

I was conducting a typical lesson with my student on the lute last week when he asked a very simple question for which I surprisingly found myself struggling to articulate an answer:

What is the difference between a ricercar and a fantasia?

—My shining pupil

“Oh, that’s easy…” I found myself saying, suddenly becoming aware that what I thought so easily definable was quickly slipping from my grasp. The more I chased after it, the more ephemeral it became. I immediately began with something like:

“The names for the compositions are more-or-less interchangeable, and they were often whimsically composed, containing a rather improvisatory nature due to the relatively free and open form it offered a composer.”

—Me

And then I found myself second-guessing that statement, while it held some merit, could that possibly be the complete answer? Conjuring up particular examples, I looked on doubtfully at the thoroughness of my response—ultimately appending my answer with a “Great question, let me look into this a bit more!”

Splitting hairs

Pulling out Occam’s Razor, I asked myself, why would two separate names have come to be for the same compositional form? The ricercar and fantasia were both emerging in the 16th century, initially finding a great deal of traction predominately on lute and other plucked instruments in Italy and Spain. So what’s the difference? Again, great question!

Maybe it’s one of those “not all rectangles are squares” scenarios, where what we find is there are a lot of similarities between the two, but also some distinctions worth noting. One, for instance, crept up almost immediately to me when I began to explore a variety of lute pieces titled either a ricercar or fantasia, and that was there was a dichotomy in what I was seeing in some of the ricercars. Many ricercars shared similarities with what you would find in a fantasia, from the improvisatory feel to adept divisions and chord movements. On the other hand, you also find strictly contrapuntal/polyphonic compositions that are well structured titled ricercars. You begin to look at the ricercare as either one of two types: improvisatory or emulative. Emulative in the sense that it drew inspiration from choral works of time. Josquin was a prime example from which emulations are abundant. Barring the inevitable contradictory example, fantasies tend to share most traits with the improvisatory type of ricercar—keeping a freer form and the ‘seeking out’ of thematic material.

The term Fantasia beginning to appear later in the 16th century than the ricercar. It has been traced back to first appearing in Milan around 1536 (at least by surviving evidence) in the lute works of Marco d’Aquilla and Francesco da Milano. Francesco da Milano was a prevalent composer of both ricercar and fantasias and often seemed to use the terminology interchangeably. Like ricercar, it was not limited to lute music, and some of the earliest surviving fantasias are keyboard pieces from Germany. You can find other examples in the Renaissance of composers who tended to use one term in preference to the other the other. Dowland is a prime example, as he tended to use exclusively use “Fantasy” rather than ricercar.

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Preamble and Tastar de Chordes

Perhaps an offshoot of the ricercar in many ways, two other compositions known as Tastar de Chordes and Preambles begin to appear early on. These types of works deserve an honorable mention. These pieces had a more functional aspect in them than being strictly for musical consumption. Their aim was to provide the performer a way to both warm up their fingers and simulatneously check the tuning of their instrument. Some examples of this type of composition begin to appear early within the 16th century around the discussion of ricercars. An example from 1508 in Dalza’s Intabolatura de lauto libro quarto indicates the use of a prelude (tastar de chorde) to introduce a ricercar of more complex composition. These types of pieces can be traced back to the ricercar of improvisatory nature, and often tend to cover as much territory as possible on the fretboard to provide the performer ample testing ground for any last minute tuning adjustments.

In conclusion

The showdown between fantasia and ricercar was less dramatic than I immediately hoped, and it appears that they are more-or-less interchangeable, save for the few distinction that I was able to discern above. In the words of my lute teacher, Scott H:

For all intents and purposes, they are pretty much the same.

He mentioned several of the points I’ve already expounded upon, so I’ll spare you the redundancy here. Turns out I might have actually learned a thing or two from my own teacher. Imagine that! So while you can split hairs over some technicalities, you’ll find, for the most part that there’s no true distinction, at least from the Renaissance perspective—and that’s what we’re studying after all. If there’s one other thing Scott has imparted on me, it is that folks of the Renaissance age weren’t so obsessed with systemizing and formalizing things into distinct categories as we are in the modern age. Here I find thisbit of wisdom rings true as our good friends of the Renaissance often used them interchangeably.

Have any interesting insights or anecdotes to add to the fantasia vs. ricecar discussion? I’d love to hear them.

Francesco da Milano: Fantasia 33

Because I can't rightly send out a post without a bit of actual music, here’s one of Da Milano’s Fantasias:

If you want to see the music or play it yourself, here are some resources :)

• Notation

• Fascimile (whole printed source)