View source for Thomas Ravenscroft

{{Short description|English musician, theorist and editor}}
{{distinguish|Thomas Ravenscroft (MP)|Tom Ravenscroft}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
'''Thomas Ravenscroft''' ({{circa|1588}} &ndash; 1635) was an [[English people|English]] musician, theorist and editor, notable as a [[composer]] of [[round (music)|rounds]] and [[Catch (music)|catches]], and especially for compiling collections of English [[folk music]].<ref>[https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.22966 Mateer, David. 'Ravenscroft, Thomas' in ''Grove Music Online'' (2001)]</ref>

==Biography==
Little is known of Ravenscroft's early life. He probably sang in the [[choir]] of [[St. Paul's Cathedral]] from 1594, when a ''Thomas Raniscroft'' was listed on the choir rolls and remained there until 1600 under the directorship of Thomas Giles. He received his bachelor's degree in 1605 from [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]].<ref>{{cite journal |jstor=3714755 |title= Thomas Ravenscroft's Theatrical Associations |author=W. J. Lawrence |journal=The Modern Language Review |volume=19 |issue=4 |date=October 1924 |pages= 418–423 |doi= 10.2307/3714755}}</ref>

Ravenscroft's principal contributions are his collections of [[folk music]], including catches, rounds, [[street cries]], vendor songs, "freeman's songs" and other anonymous music, in three collections: ''[[Pammelia]]'' (1609), ''Deuteromelia'' or ''The Second Part of Musicks Melodie'' (1609) and ''Melismata'' (1611), which contains one of the best-known works in his collections, [[The Three Ravens]]. Some of the music he compiled has acquired extraordinary fame, though his name is rarely associated with the music; for example "[[Three Blind Mice]]" first appears in ''Deuteromelia.''<ref>The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (1951)</ref> He moved to Bristol where he published a [[metrical psalter]] (''The Whole Booke of Psalmes'') in 1621.

[[File:I have House and Land in Kent.ogg|thumb|Ravenscroft: "I Have House and Land in Kent" (1611) on sampled instrumentation]]

As a composer, his works are mostly forgotten but include 11 [[anthem]]s, 3 [[motet]]s for five voices and 4 [[fantasia (music)|fantasia]]s for [[viol]]s.

As a writer, he wrote two treatises on music theory. ''The Briefe Discourse of the True (but Neglected) Use of Charact'ring the Degrees'' (London, 1614) includes 20 songs as examples: seven by [[John Bennet (composer)|John Bennet]], two by Edward Pearce and the rest by Ravenscroft himself. Of these, the group of dialect songs 'Hodge und Malkyn' from the fifth a final section was nominated by [[Jeffrey Mark]] as the earliest example of a [[song-cycle]] in English music history.<ref>Mark, Jeffrey. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/911743 'Thomas Ravenscroft, B. Mus. (c. 1583-c. 1633)'], in ''The Musical Times'', Vol. 65, No. 980 (Oct. 1, 1924), pp. 883-4</ref> There is also ''A Treatise of Musick'', which remains in manuscript (unpublished).

==Hymns==
* Hark the glad sound! the Saviour comes (to the words of [[Philip Doddridge]])
* The Alternative version of 'Dundee' hymn tune, 1615: Melody in the tenor part, harmonised, 1621.
* 'Lord, in thy name thy servants plead', tune 'Lincoln' from Ravenscroft's Psalter, words by [[John Keble]], New English Hymnal 126

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{commons category}}
{{wikisource|works=or}}
*{{ChoralWiki}}
*{{IMSLP|id=Ravenscroft%2C_Thomas|cname=Thomas Ravenscroft}}
*{{allMusic|id=thomas-ravenscroft-mn0000583588}}
*[https://www.jstor.org/stable/4522063 ''The Significance of Thomas Ravenscroft'' Z. D. M. Bidgood ''Folk Music Journal'', Vol. 4, No. 1 (1980), pp. 24-34]
*[https://www.jstor.org/stable/831565 ''Thomas Ravenscroft: Musical Chronicler of an Elizabethan Theater Company'' Linda Phyllis Austern ''Journal of the American Musicological Society'', Vol. 38, No. 2 (Summer, 1985), pp.238-263 Article DOI: 10.2307/831565]
*[https://www.jstor.org/stable/3126196 ''The Sacred Music of Thomas Ravenscroft'' Ian Payne ''Early Music'', Vol. 10, No. 3 (Jul., 1982), pp.309-315]
*[http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/ravenscroft "The Music of Thomas Ravenscroft"] site by Greg Lindahl containing modern editions, commentary, bibliography and facsimiles, including:
**[http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/ravenscroft/pammelia/ Pammelia]
**[http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/ravenscroft/deuteromelia/ Deuteromelia]
**[http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/ravenscroft/melismata/ Melismata]
**[http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/ravenscroft/brief/ Brief]
**[http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/ravenscroft/psalter/ Psalter]
*[http://www.naxos.com/person/Thomas_Ravenscroft/16917.htm Thomas Ravenscroft] at [[Naxos Records|Naxos]]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ravenscroft, Thomas}}
[[Category:1580s births]]
[[Category:1635 deaths]]
[[Category:English classical composers of church music]]
[[Category:Year of birth uncertain]]
[[Category:English Baroque composers]]
[[Category:English music theorists]]
[[Category:English Renaissance composers]]
[[Category:17th-century English classical composers]]
[[Category:English male classical composers]]
[[Category:Ravenscroft family|Thomas]]
[[Category:17th-century English male musicians]]