Messiaen¹s solo piano piece, like his Diptyque for organ two years earlier, is generally regarded by musicologists as an interesting failure. It is indicative, as Paul Griffith notes, on Messiaen¹s inability—as his friends and colleagues insisted— to write ³light-hearted² music: he was driven by a ³musical imagination...fixed on theology.² Fantasie burlesque is a virtuosic piece in F, using a simple verse/refrain form. It has been called a failed scherzando, and Peter Hill sees the piece as derivative of Les Six. If nothing else, it is an amusing work, with harsh, tritone-dominated harmonies juxtaposed with ragtime rhythms.

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