A Piece With No Rules. That Is the Only Rule
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A title indicating that a piece follows no established form and does whatever it likes has been applied to wildly different music across four centuries, which is exactly the point.
What the title signals
The word means a whim or a sudden impulse, and applied to a piece of music it indicates that the composer is not following any of the established forms. It is therefore a label for the absence of a label. What it does communicate is a manner rather than a structure, promising something lively, unpredictable, possibly humorous and frequently technically demanding. A listener encountering the title should expect abrupt changes of direction rather than the orderly development a sonata or a fugue would supply.
How the meaning shifted
The same word covered very different things in different periods:
- •In the early seventeenth century, a keyboard piece in fugal style
- •Then a free instrumental piece with no fixed form
- •By the nineteenth century, a brilliant display piece for a soloist
- •Also an orchestral work on national or folk material
- •And a short character piece for piano
- •Throughout, the common thread is freedom rather than any structure
The pieces people know
Several works carrying the title are extremely well known and their variety proves the point. Paganini's twenty four solo violin pieces are studies of ferocious difficulty, and the last of them supplied a theme that has been reworked by Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Lutoslawski and dozens of others. Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov both wrote orchestral works built on Italian and Spanish material respectively, evoking places rather than developing arguments. Brahms wrote short piano pieces under the title. No structural feature connects these beyond the freedom the name announces.
The neighbouring free forms
Several titles announce something similar and the shades of difference are worth knowing. A fantasia promises free form with a more improvisatory and dreamlike character. A rhapsody suggests an episodic sweep, frequently on national material. An impromptu implies something composed as though on the spot. A prelude originally introduced something else and became a free standing piece. A bagatelle announces a trifle, which is a claim about scale rather than structure. All of them share the refusal to follow an established pattern and differ in the mood they promise.
The same idea in other arts
The term travelled across art forms and kept its meaning remarkably well. In painting, particularly in eighteenth century Venice, it names a fantasy architectural view combining real buildings with invented ones in impossible arrangements, which is a visual equivalent of the musical freedom. Goya used it for a series of satirical prints. In literature it names a short work of fanciful invention. In every case the term signals that the maker has set aside the usual constraints deliberately and expects the audience to enjoy the result on those terms.
The takeaway
The title announces the absence of a form rather than the presence of one, promising liveliness, unpredictability and frequently difficulty. It has covered fugal keyboard pieces, virtuoso violin studies, orchestral evocations of places and short piano works, connected only by that freedom. Painters used it for fantasy architectural views combining real buildings with invented ones.