Canto Antiguo

Music from the Spanish Middle Ages and Renaissance

Sacred and secular music from the codeces from the Composela pilgrimage, the Cántigas de Santa María, and the cancioneros of the great palaces. Canto Antiguo included a former member of Noah Greenberg's New York Pro Musica and a music professor from Cal State Fullerton.

When this recording came out, in 1977, its musicians (from the cultural wastelands of southern California) were overshadowed by much glitzier European performers, such as the Early Music Consort of London and Studio für Alte Musik, and its improvisatory sound was not well-received by scholars. Time has since vindicated this interesting recording: today's performers of early Spanish music not only insist on true improvisation, they also embrace the Sephardic and Mozarabic musical influences that audiences in the 1970s did not appreciate.

The bright sound of this recording is surprisingly modern because the microphones were placed in an experimentally close X-Y pattern. The only anomaly was the group's countertenor, who projected toward each microphone alternatively just as he did to live audiences.

Canto Antiguo
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