Troubadours / Cantigas de Santa Maria

In the early music field, no recording can claim completeness or definitiveness, for several reasons: there are too many uncertainties about performance practice, every year more works or fragments are discovered, and new research continues to change traditional thinking. But this collection, for now, can at least claim a position as "more complete" than any other recording of the famous Cantigas de Santa Maria (Songs of Holy Mary). In fact, there are four discs in this set, and to record all of the songs in the collection would take at least 16 more. Another claim these performers can make is for the most realistic presentation imaginable: between the slightly rustic quality of the singing, the authentic dialect of the readings, and the effective instrumental interjections and accompaniments, this is an unqualified masterpiece of performance, programming, and recording. --David Vernier