The Cancionero de Medinaceli or Cancionero Musical de Medinaceli (CMM) is a manuscript containing Spanish music of the Renaissance. It was copied during the second half of the 16th century and kept at the library of the Duke of Medinaceli's house, hence its name. Is it probably the most important compilation of Spanish secular polyphony of the Renaissance after the Cancionero de Palacio.

Between 1975 and 1983 Jordi Savall and the vocal and instrumental ensemble Hespèrion XX made a dozen recordings which remain indispensable to our knowledge of the richness and vitality of early Spanish music. They include performances not only of art music from the courts of Ferdinand and Isabella, and later Charles V and Philip II, but songs by women troubadours of the early 13th century, Sephardic romances and a justly famous recording of 14th-century pilgrim songs from the Llibre Vermell of Montserrat. Eight of these recordings were subsequently remastered for CD and are now brought together in this budget-priced Black Box.

Prior to the Spanish Inquisition, peace, tolerance, and shared learning existed. This shared knowledge influenced all subjects from the sciences to the arts. The music composed and performed during this time was about being in the moment: Some pieces tell stories–'Cancionera de la Columbina' for example–while others express emotions, as in the 'Romances.' Interestingly enough, the "non-Jewish" selections were written during the Inquisition, while the Sephardic selections were written right before it.

This disc could top the early music charts in any of several categories: outstanding viol consort; best programming; superior engineering. And for sheer aesthetic beauty, it would be hard to find a recording that would score higher on the greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts scale. Jordi Savall and his Hespèrion XX ensemble pretty much own the viol repertoire, but usually we find them plumbing the works of continental composers from Spain, France, and Italy. Here we find them across the channel in Reformation England in what must have been the very satisfying task of bringing to light the seriously neglected instrumental music of Christopher Tye. Many observers would justifiably argue that although only 31 pieces exist, Tye's music for viol consort represents a summation of the genre–which in its complexities of texture and interdependence of the respective parts is the direct ancestor of the string quartet and other forms of chamber music. Savall and his five colleagues perform all 31 works, most of which are between two and three minutes long and primarily in a contrapuntal form known as In Nomine–a uniquely English creation, popular with many composers, in which a particular section from a John Taverner mass was used as a basis for the whole piece.