The word villancico is a vague one, sometimes used as an umbrella for a wide range of Spanish secular song forms. But if the name itself is revealing—it derives from the word ville or city—of the song type's essentially street-level appeal (like the frottolas of Italy), then the jaunty piece Isabel perdiste la tu faxa can be considered almost a textbook example of a villancico. Villancicos are, at least, a fully Spanish genre of song that even in its prototypical forms was almost certainly performed with either lute or vihuela backing a solo voice. Nothing as sensibly idiomatic for lute and voice as a work like Isabel, perdiste la tu faxa was being composed anywhere in Europe except Spain. All the instruments in the guitar family were introduced to Europe by the Moors through medieval Spain. Naturally, Spanish performance traditions on these instruments in the sixteenth century were well ahead of where they were on the rest of the continent. But aside from its evident stylistic maturness, Isabel, perdiste la tu faxa is also probably one of Mudarra's more blatantly profane pieces. It's almost a piece of musical candy; not even two minutes if played twice through, the text is a fragmentary anecdote about the pretty Isabel, who loses her girdle in the river and goes in swimming after it. It's uknown if this means she's swimming in the nude, and/or if the poem allegorically refers to some event in sixteenth century news. The vihuela part is unusually lively and notey for a Mudarra song. In fact, the whole dancing piece is a fantasia-like interweaving of instrument and voice parts. The vihuela runs along with sprightly polyphony just ahead of the voice, anticipating to various degrees what she will sing, varying it before she gets there, and lauding her with its quick runs like silly pink ribbons when she arrives. Like many Spanish composers of his time, Mudarra was a consummate vihuelist, so it's not hard to imagine him composing Isabel, perdiste la tu faxa in a giggling moment of spontaneity.

© Donato Mancini, All Music Guide