Thomas Ravenscroft

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 Cambridge.{{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}}

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.The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (1951) 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

As a composer, his works are mostly forgotten but include 11 anthems, 3 motets for five voices and 4 fantasias for viols.

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, 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.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Times, Vol. 65, No. 980 (Oct. 1, 1924), pp. 883-4 There is also A Treatise of Musick, which remains in manuscript (unpublished).

• 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.

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• {{ChoralWiki}}
• {{IMSLP|id=Ravenscroft%2C_Thomas|cname=Thomas Ravenscroft}}
• {{allmusicguide|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

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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

Thomas

Category:17th-century English male musicians