The courtly love songs of Martin Codax, a medieval Spanish counterpart to the French troubadours and trouvères, haven't often been heard, even in comparison with the sacred Cantigas de Santa María attributed to King Alfonso X. Partly this is because they were written in the disused Galician-Portuguese language. This Spanish release does a good job of explaining why that was, and of placing these relatively simple, melancholy songs (they use the conventions of courtly love poetry but are written from the point of view of a woman longing for her lover's return) in the context of other medieval secular genres. Spain around the time of Alfonso's reign was a multicultural society, with surviving iconographic evidence indicating a presence of Arabic and Jewish elements in music of the time. Other recordings highlight an Arab sound to a greater degree than this one does, and vocalist Carole Matras on a release from Belgium's Musica Ficta label gives the texts a meatier treatment than does soprano Fuensanta Escribà, featured here. But this album, by the Spanish ensemble Supramúsica, sticks closer to what is known about how the music might have actually sounded and is clearer in introducing a repertory that is unknown to most listeners. Sample several recordings (the
Hilliard Ensemble has also recorded some of these songs), for the differences between them are mostly ones of style, but the exquisite sadness of these medieval love songs comes through nicely on this one. The texts of a few songs are partly spoken here, and the sound is not well handled in these sections -- it sounds as though it's being spoken on a stage distant from the listener.