Unlike the latter, which have been handed down to us with their corresponding music, of the Galaico-Portuguese repertory only the literary texts have survived, with the exception of a short cycle of songs, or cantigas, by Martín Códax and one other attributed to Don Denis of Portugal.

Although this is perhaps the best edition to date of Martín Códax’s Cantigas de amigo ("songs of friendship" sung by the lover to his - or her- love), the performance is marred by a number of shortcomings. The first and most serious is that it follows no interpretative criteria, wavering as it does between simple recital to musical accompaniment and a pseudo-folkloric approach of the castanets and tambourine variety, with rhythms more proper to mensural notation. The second fault, which follows from the first, is that at times the singing is soporific whilst at others it is in vivace tempo, without any apparent justification. The third is that, contrary to historical authenticity, it conceives the medieval instruments as a kind of orchestra.

If historical and artistic rigour are of no account, then some passages of the CD, which includes two adaptations of cantigas, may find favour with the undemanding listener, precisely the kind of listener, it must be said, who is unlikely to be a regular reader of Goldberg. MARICARMEN GÓMEZ

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