Unlike the Kid, her mum and large numbers of my friends and workmates, I scarcely know Brittany and have only set foot there twice, though it's one of the nearest parts of France to Paris that could almost be a different country. But Marianne loves its legends and has told me several stories which are echoed in old tales I knew from the south-western part of la Grande-Bretagne, my native side of the water.
Good Breton music was, until the late 80s at least, a feature of my corner of town, since that part of the country is served by trains from Montparnasse and some of the streets around the large southern Paris station acquired Breton "settlers", bars, shops and clubs. Apart from the many crêperies still to be found today, most of that has disappeared in less than two decades.
All honour, then, to Denez Prigent, a Breton musician from northern Finistère who first learnt a traditional and difficult a capella narrative style, known as gwerzioù, from his grandmother as a boy in the 1960s and has gone on to captivate people in Paris, the nation and recently, other parts of Europe, with some increasingly original and wonderful albums.
Like his internationally renowned compatriot Alan Stivell (Fr., Eng. and Breton), Denez believes that Breton musical traditions are best upheld and maintained by reviving them with a leap across barriers and venturing into some bold juxtapositions and harmonies of style.
His latest CD, Sarac'h' (Oct 2003, Barclay), is proof that "he who dares -- sometimes -- wins".
And, surprise, it's part of my ongoing exploration of the voices of women too. In this instance, those of Lisa Gerrard ('Immortal Memory' and ex-Dead Can Dance), Gaelic stunner Karen Matheson ... and Bulgaria's Yanka Rupkina as well as fellow Breton Louise Ebrei.
This mixture works. Admirably and beautifully. And so does Prigent's call on musicians as diverse as Nabil Khalidi from Morocco, with his oud, or lute, Latif Khan playing Indian tabla drums and Marcel Aubé on both the guitar-like north African gembri and the Chinese violin in the accompaniments, alongside more customary instruments and some carefully dosed electronica.
The recording is of spectacularly high quality and the CD's lavish presentation in little book form original. Some of the songs are on traditional, story-telling bardic themes, with unusual excursions -- 'La Gwerz de Kiev' on famine in Ukraine, 'Geotenn ar marz' on genetically modified crops -- and I've no idea what others are about, since not all the lyrics are translated and I don't understand Breton. In an interview I've just found at M La Music (Fr.), Denez explains:
"...I only translated what can be translated, because not everything is, like rhyme and humour. It's pretty difficult to translate a gwerz into French."
Not that it matters. Music is a language all its own. Though one French reviewer comments that if you have only just one album of Breton music, make it 'Sarac'h', I don't hear that myself. Breton it may be in origin and tradition, but the only possible pigeon-hole for this CD is "world music". It's that broad in its scope.
"Sarac'h" apparently means the rustling of the breeze in leaves. And there's a Ridley Scott connection. Prigent features on the soundtrack of 'Black Hawk Down', while we have Lisa Gerrard and Hans Zimmer to thank for the score to 'Gladiator'.
9:55:13 PM link 
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