Martin Best, founder of the medieval music ensemble that bears his name, lived the life of a latter-day minstrel. He first learned the craft of music as an apprentice, studying classical guitar with two of the 20th century's greatest masters, Andrés Segovia and John Williams. He spent his journeyman years, however, among the peasants of a rural Spanish village. That part of Best's musical career was devoted to a simple lifestyle and the music of the folk. In that vein, he began a recording career with a wide variety of vocal and instrumental albums ranging across centuries (English popular music from Shakespeare to the 20th century) and across linguistic groups (English, Spanish, French, and Provençal). Yet in 1981, Best narrowed his specialty to the European troubadour traditions, what he had once called his "first love." That's when he formed the Martin Best Medieval Ensemble. In the 1980s, the Martin Best Medieval Ensemble (and the Martin Best Consort) took England's early music scene by storm with a popular series of recordings for Nimbus Records. Each was an acoustically fresh read on a selection of poets and composers: Guiraut Riquier, Bernart de Ventadorn, Italian and southern French contemporaries of Dante, other troubadours and trouvéres, the Lamento di Tristan, and the Cantigas de Santa Maria. In the meantime, the ensemble presented a series of medieval concert programs for the BBC and debuted in Britain's most prestigious concert venues: Wigmore Hall, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, and the Proms. ~ Timothy Dickey