There has been a spate of recordings of early Spanish music in recent times, but few of those that have come my way were made by the Spaniards themselves. I have often been curious to know how they would assess the efforts of other nationals to interpret their music, and it was with memories of Sequentia's interpretation of some of the Cantigas (Vox Iberica III—Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, 12/92) that I listened to La Capella Reial de Catalunya's performance of a programme from the same repertoire. Out of the 22 singers and instrumentalists I spotted only two names that were clearly not Spanish—two, indeed, that I was pleased to see: Robert Crawford-Young and Andrew Lawrence-King.
It is a recording of immense charm and simplicity. The short modal melodies are compelling, even after the constant repetition of multiple stanzas. The effect of these on the ear is rather like an incantation and as two of these tunes occupy more than a third of the entire recording one might expect the result to be monotonous. Quite the contrary: some variety is introduced by the use of canon or discreet accompaniment, but the melodies themselves (Muito faz grand'erro and De toda chaga ben pode guarir) can bear this constant repetition.
The Spaniards themselves come into their own, as one would expect, in the highly rhythmic songs (Miragres fremosos is a typical example), with their strange uneven phrase lengths. The instrumental interludes provide light relief, though the cracked bell—just about up to the singers' pitch—might well have been replaced.'