Thomas Ravenscroft

Rounds or catches

Singer, composer, music theorist, Thomas Ravenscroft (c.1590-1635) is best known as a collector and as the first editor of popular songs and English rounds (or catches).Designed to be sung in unison in various registers (notated in all different clefs from the bass to the treble clef), the canons were equally playable on instruments such as recorders or viols.The canons are based on various texts: nursery rhymes, street cries, tavern songs, sol-fa-ing games, traditionnal ballads and also sacred texts in Latin and English.All the pieces are accompanied by their text, written below the stave.Certain pieces have been transposed for instrumental reasons which are related to the technical progression.