Psalm 42 by William Billings

William Billings was an American singing school master. He taught people in towns and villages how to read music, staying with them for several weeks. There were no instructional books with examples of music to teach, so Billings collected his own teaching materials, which included his original compositions. This setting of Psalm 42 is an example of a fuguing tune, a choral composition that starts with a homophonic texture and goes on to a section of imitational polyphony, in the manner of a fugue, where one voice enters, followed by another until all the voices are singing together.
Billings was not concerned with following formal rules of voice leading and treatment of dissonance. He let his ear and taste be his guide. His music has a Renaissance feel to it, which music reformers like Lowell Mason objected to.