Stylus fantasticus

The stylus fantasticus (or stylus phantasticus) is a style of early baroque music. The root of this music is organ toccatas and
fantasias, particularly derived from those of Claudio Merulo (1533–1604), organist at St Mark's basilica in Venice. A later
practitioner in Rome was Girolamo Frescobaldi, and his German student Froberger took the style north with him. There were
constant flows of Italian musicians north to Bavaria and Saxony, of German musicians south to Italy (such as Hans Leo Hassler and
Heinrich Schütz), and of musicians who had careers in both Austria and Italy (such as Sances and Turini). The author, scientist and
inventor, a true baroque polymath,Athanasius Kircher describes the stylus fantasticus in his book,Musurgia Universalis:

"The fantastic style is especially suited to instruments. It is the most free and unrestrained
method of composing, it is bound to nothing, neither to any words nor to a melodic subject, it
was instituted to display genius and to teach the hidden design of harmony and the
ingenious composition of harmonic phrases and fugues."

The style is related to improvisation but is characterised by the use of short contrasting episodes and a free form, just like a classical
fantasia.

In Austria the style was practised by the famousformidable virtuoso Heinrich Ignaz Biber and the older Johann Heinrich Schmelzer.

In summer the Prince Bishop of Olomouc and his court retired to Kroměříž Castle, where there were lavish musical entertainments.
Ballets such as The Fencing School and descriptive pieces such as Battalia or The Peasants go to Church. Kroměříž Castle then was
newly built by the Prince Bishop, the original medieval structure having been destroyed by the Swedes towards the end of the Thirty
Years' War. Jacob Handl had worked at the old castle between 1579 and 1585. The discontinuity in musical life and musical training
due to the Thirty Years' War explains the originality and the folksiness of the stylus fantasticus at Kroměříž. Though Bishop Karl was
fanatically interested in music, and is principally known in England as a patron of Biber and Schmelzer, he was the driving force
behind the restoration of the economy of Moravia after the destruction of the Thirtyears'
Y War.

Many facets of musical modernism were invented in the stylus fantasticus at Kroměříž, such as bitonality in Battalia, minimalism in
The Peasants go to Church, stochasticism in Vejvanovsky's Bells. What is not always mentioned is that these techniques are used to
represent chaos, drunkenness, stupidity, and animal noises rather than as a principal resource.

Composers employing the stylus fantasticus

Johann Sebastian Bach
Antonio Bertali
Heinrich Ignaz Biber
Dietrich Buxtehude
Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi Mealli
Johann Adam Reincken
Johann Heinrich Schmelzer
Pavel Josef Vejvanovsky
Johann Schop
Nicolaus Bruhns
Girolamo Frescobaldi

Bibliography
Kircher, Athanasius, 1602–1680.Musurgia universalis sive ars magna consoni et dissoni in libros digesta
. Romae :
Ex typographia Haeredum Francisci. Corbelletti, 1650.
http://www.rdg.ac.uk/library/colls/special/featureditem/kircher/index.html.
 http://galileo.rice.edu/Catalog/NewFiles/kircher
.html

Historical sources
Musurgia universalis by Athanasius Kircher; page 585 (Max Planck Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte)
Musurgia universalis by Athanasius Kircher; page 585 (University of Strasbourg alt)
-
Early Chamber Music by Ruth Halle Rowen; page 10

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This page was last edited on 18 August 2016, at 18:05.

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