Martin Best

Martin Best (born 13 April 1942) is an English singer, lutenist, guitarist, and composer. Best has been active mainly in early music including Renaissance music, minstrel songs and the French troubadour traditions, in works related to Shakespeare, such as the sonnets and music to Shakespeare plays, and also in songs of the Swedish ballad tradition. He has often performed in constellations named Martin Best Consort and Martin Best Medieval Ensemble.

Best got a position at the Royal Shakespeare Company in the mid-1960s and remained associated with them for over 30 years as an actor-singer, musician and composer.

His first works in the Swedish ballad tradition were the songs of Carl Michael Bellman, Sweden's unofficial national poet, who is sometimes considered the starting point of the Swedish ballad tradition. Best recorded three albums with Bellman's songs, mainly from the song collections Fredman's Epistles in translations by Paul Britten Austin, with some additions from Fredman's Songs as well as other Bellman works: To Carl Michael with Love (1975), Bellman in Britain (1978), and Songs of Carl Michael Bellman. Songs from the two first albums were later collected on a CD, also named To Carl Michael with Love. Göran Forsling wrote that "With his flexible voice and his masterly treatment of the guitar and the cyster, the latter a lute-like instrument that Bellman also played, [Best] is a worthy transmitter of the Bellman tradition." Forsling notes that Sven-Bertil Taube and Fred Åkerström gave Bellman's songs a new, earthy realism ideal for the 20th century, but argues that Best is closer to how Bellman must have sounded, "though not theatrical enough if the ear-witnesses' are to be relied on. He is fresh and lively, his diction is excellent and his rhythmic acuity is striking."

Other Swedish song poets performed by Best include Birger Sjöberg (1885–1929), with one album released in 1979.

Discography Original recordings. Years are release years, when such have been available. 1972 (or earlier). Martin Best & Edward Flower: The Art of the Minstrel – Lute Songs, LP. 1974. Martin Best Consort: The Warwickshire Lad, LP 1977. Martin Best: Knight On the Road, LP. With amplified instruments. ? (recorded 1983). Martin Best Medieval Ensemble: Songs of Chivalry, LP? Also in the 1999 CD box Music from the Age of Chivalry. French ballads by Thibaut de Navarre etc. ? (recorded 1994). Martin Best Medieval Ensemble: Forgotten Provence – Music-making in the South of France, 1150–1550, CD. Also in the 1999 CD box Music from the Age of Chivalry. ? (recorded 1996?) Martin Best Consort: Amor de Lonh – The Distant Love of the Troubadours, CD. Also in the 1999 CD box Music from the Age of Chivalry.