6 Higgins ⦁ Anglo-American Psalmody Thomas Ravenscroft, in his 1621 The Whole Booke of Psalmes, was no exception, using tunes from previous composers like Tallis and Dowland, but also including many tunes of his own creation,29 setting the standard for later American composers to publish tune books of their compositions. We also see in Ravenscroft’s Whole Booke more musica ficta than what was included in Este (which already included examples of musica ficta), demonstrating that Ravenscroft was already responding to the new Baroque sound developing in his day, based on harmonic tension and resolution.30 One unique element of dissonance that Ravenscroft included was the “split third” chord or a “false relation,” wherein a dominant chord in a cadential figure would contain both the major third and the minor third.31 This can be seen in “Cambridge Tune,” which has a false relation on the word “tumult,” between the E and Eflat (see Example 2). Ravenscroft also pioneered the innovation of tune names based on towns or other regional markers (e.g. “Cambridge,” “High Dutch Tune, or “Winchester”),32 which truly cemented these tunes as the “common tunes” for these psalms until the end of the century, as they became easily identifiable and able to be cataloged.33 Ravenscroft’s tunes were so influential that they were still used in 1689 in the Puritan colonies of America.34 Example 2: Ravenscroft, “Cambridge Tune,” from The Whole Booke of Psalmes (1621).35 29 Ravenscroft, 2. 30 Duguid, 134–135. 31 Ravenscroft, 26–27. 32 Ravenscroft, index. 33 Duguid, 123. 34 Macdougall, 26. 35 Ravenscroft, “Cambridge Tune,” 27.
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