fantasia

1. (music, also figurative) A form of instrumental composition with a free structure and improvisational characteristics; specifically, one combining a number of well-known musical pieces.Examples: "The Fantasia, by Mr. [Pio] Cianchettini, is upon [Gioachino] Rossini's air "Tu che accendi," so often made the theme of piano forte lessons. [...] Mr. Cianchettini's imagination is very vivid and full, and we know of nothing more florid or requiring lighter and more delicate touching than this Fantasia."; "Miss [Eleanor Margaret] Geary is a brilliant pianiste, who make light of the modern difficulties set down for the instrument: her performance of [Theodor] Döhler's Anna Bolena fantasia was achieved without apparent effort, and won considerable applause; [...] Miss E[lizabeth] Geary is a vocalist, possessing a sweet and flexible voice, [...] this young lady also played a fantasia on the concertina very adroitly."; "The little Italian party, before alluded to, had collected around the piano. The white and plump fingers of the gay and black-eyed daughter of the Roman marchioness were tripping lightly up and down the octaves of the instrument, and her little tastefully arranged head was merrily dancing from side to side, keeping time to the half-improvised phantasia, which trickled like a wayward stream from her hands."alsofiguratively

2. (chiefly art, by extension) Any work which is unstructured or comprises other works of different genres or styles.Examples: "It is, however, a ceremony of immense antiquity, and the chief civil festival of the year among the Arabs, who love nothing more dearly than a "phantasia" of this sort."; "When, at the head-centre, the lady demonstrator, armed with a Brobdingnagian whalebone needle, threaded with a bright red cord, executed herringboned fantasias on a canvas frame resembling a violin stand, it all looked easy enough."; "Consequently 'War in the Air' means social destruction instead of victory as the end of war. It not only alters the methods of war but the consequences of war. After all that has happened since this fantasia of possibility was written, I do not think that there is much wrong with this thesis."broadly