Musical Offerings ⦁ 2026 ⦁ Volume 17 ⦁ Number 1 5 setting.22 The more homophonic tradition was becoming more preferred, winning support in the eyes of the people and the publishers. In the early Baroque, psalmody became more codified in its presentation, with various publishers printing their own competing psalm books that were meant to represent how people actually sang the psalms in churches.23 People would sing psalms at work, sometimes for the simple reason of enjoying the way the harmonies sounded.24 The centrality of local tradition caused psalm singing to be codified in different ways for various audiences, and this diversification between different styles caused one family of printers, the Day family, to battle over publication rights over different editions of a collection called The Whole Booke of Psalmes. This resulted in melodic variation between psalm tunes and different tune pairings for certain psalms based on competing traditions of how they were to be sung.25 The desire for a codification of styles culminated under the direction of two publishers: Thomas Este and Thomas Ravenscroft. Unlike Day and his son, Este in his The Whole Booke of Psalmes (1592) provided a polyphonic tune with every psalm and hymn in his book, duplicating tunes where necessary to fill the whole book. The harmonic language of the tunes in the book fits closely with the style of Byrd and Tallis, which follows from the close relationship Este had with these composers.26 Parallel fifths were not considered proper counterpoint, and the only dissonances that seemed to be considered appropriate were the dominant seventh chord.27 Madrigal composers such as John Dowland and John Farmer arranged and harmonized the tunes in the Este book, showing the relationship psalmody had to the broader culture at the time.28 We can compare the work of Este with works from later compilers such as James Lyon’s Urania or William Tattersall’s Improved Psalmody, who sought to take the popular melodies and popular composers of the time as leverage for marketing their psalm books. 22 William Leighton, The Teares or Lamentacions of a Sorrowfull Soule, image 21. 23 Duguid, 194. 24 Duguid, 182. 25 Duguid, 111–112. 26 Duguid, 121. 27 Macdougall, 14. 28 Duguid, 122.
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