Martin Codax:
Ondas do mare de Vigo
Mandad'ei comigo
Mia irmana fremosa
Ai Deus, se sab'ora meu
Quantas sabedes amare amigo
Eno sagrado en Vigo
Ai ondas que eu vin veere
Estevao Raimondo:
Amigo, se ben ajades
Bernal de Bonaval:
Fremosa a Deus grado
Roi Fernandez de Santiago:
Quand’eu vejo las ondas

The courtly lyric which appeared in Southern France at the beginning of the 12th century became popular not only in France, but right across Europe. The special connections between the Occitan kingdoms and those of nearby Spain, along with the art of the Galician poets and minstrels, gave rise to an original courtly tradition in the Gallego-Portuguese language. As with the poetry of the troubadours, several genres can be distinguished, among them the cantiga de amigo, characterised by a text expressing the thoughts and feelings of a young woman who misses her absent beloved. Of the 10 cantigas de amigo presented on this disc, seven are attributed to Martin Codax, a poet about whom practically nothing else is known. Unusually, these seven songs, rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century, appear to constitute a cycle: a young woman looks out over the sea at Vigo (a city in Galicia), sometimes hoping for her beloved’s return, sometimes lamenting or expressing her helplessness at her solitude. Only six of these seven cantigas have been preserved with their melodies, and these represent the sole musical testament of the genre.