Fantasia is a single-movement piece, commissioned in 2024 from composer Rosemary Robinson jointly with Blokfluitdagen Mechelen. Both organisations are extremely grateful to her for composing this lovely piece.
Her brief was to write a piece that increases in difficulty as it progresses, to match the courses’ playing level descriptors. The piece is divided into five numbered sections, which correspond to the playing level descriptors for RSS. Ensembles and tutorials work better if the standard of all players is well matched, so the tutors can confidently choose repertoire by level.
Click here to download Rosemary Robinson’s Fantasia.
When playing and practising Fantasia you will probably run into problems at a certain point, or even get completely stuck. Don’t worry, you are not expected to be able to play the whole piece; it is there to help you find which level will suit you best at RSS. However, it is very important to play each section at the indicated tempo.
When using the descriptors to assess your playing level, you need to be able to fulfil all the requirements in a level in order to reach that level. The same applies to Fantasia. You must be able to play a whole section, with a bit of practice, at the correct speed, before you can say you are at that level. For example, if you can easily play the whole of section 3 and most of section 4, then you are level 3 (and not level 4). This means a tutor taking a level 3 session will assume everyone meets all the requirements of level 3 and will pick music accordingly. They will give advice for working on techniques which are in the level 4 descriptors.
If you have any questions about the levels or Rosemary Robinson’s Fantasia, please visit our Frequenty Asked Questions page.