Cancionero — Music for the Spanish Court 1470-1520
Dufay Collective (Avie)
Iberia! Spanish & Portuguese Music of the Golden Age
Waverly Consort (Waverly Consort label)
Two excellent early music groups have just released complementary recordings of Golden Age Spanish music that offer aural riches aplenty. The instrumental ensemble from England, the Dufay Collective, offers us 31 instrumental and vocal selections of Spanish court music from the period 1470-1520. On its own label, the Boston-based Waverly Consort has recorded 17 Spanish and Portuguese theater, courtand festival music pieces from the period 1500-1700.
The Waverly Consort album contains a greater number of fast, lively pieces of dance origin, while the Dufay Collective CD leans more toward ballads, although musical variety is not lacking in either disc. Ultimately, whether listening to Gaspar Sanz’s glorious “Canarios” on the Waverly disc (with its effusion of catchy) rhythms for two vihuelas, bass viol and harp; or the plaintive beauty of the accompanied solo-vocal ballad “Con amores mi madre” on the Dufay CD, one comes away equally enchanted. The Dufay’s disc on the enterprising new Avie label has been nominated for a 2003 Grammy Award. You can order the Waverly CD via a Web site, collegiumusa.com.
