Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 4.djvu/775

PSALTER. half begins with a phrase which obviously suggests a modulation to the dominant:—

but which has been treated by Parsons follows:—

The importance of this Psalter, at once the first and the most liberal of its kind, entitles it to a complete example of its workmanship. The tune chosen is that to the 137th Psalm, an excellent specimen of the English imitations of the French melodies, and interesting also as being one of the two tunes which, appearing among the first printed—in Crespin's edition of Sternhold,—are in use at this day. It was evidently a favourite with Parsons, who has set it three times; twice placing it in the tenor, and once in the upper voice. The latter setting is the one here given:—

At the end of the book are to be found a few miscellaneous compositions, some in metre and some in prose, evidently not specially intended for this work, but adopted into it. Some of these are by the musicians employed upon the Psalter; but there are also two by Tallis, and one each by Shephard and Edwards.

The ample supply of four-part settings contained in Day's great collection seems to have so far satisfied the public craving, that during the next sixteen years no other publication of the same kind was attempted. Nor had the work which appeared at the end of that period been composed with any kind of desire to rival or succeed the existing one; it had, in fact, never been intended for the public, and was brought out without the permission, or even the knowledge of its author. Its title was as follows:—

"The Psalmes of David in English meter with notes of foure partes set unto them by Guilielmo Damon, for John Bull, to the use of the godly Christians for recreatyng themselves, instede of fond and unseemly Ballades. Anno 1579 at London Printed by John Daye. Cum privilegio."

The circumstances of this publication, as they were afterwards related, were shortly these. It was Damon's custom, on the occasion of each of his visits to his friend, Mr. John Bull, to compose, and leave behind him, a four-part setting of some one of the church tunes; and these, when the collection was complete, Bull gave to the printer, without asking the author's