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Letter from Brittany
Dear readers,
It’s 3:00 A.M. at a fest-noz (night festival) and dancers are still going strong, accompanied by a group playing modern traditional Breton music on a fiddle, a guitar, an accordion, and the appropriately named bombard, a traditional Breton wind instrument of piercing sonority. Five hundred Bretons from five to 80 years old are dancing in a huge mass of tangled lines, their pinkies entwined and their feet pounding to what I think is a 5/4 beat. (I stopped counting a while ago, preferring to simply feel the rhythms.)
“It’s like a big plate of spaghetti,” says fiddler Rudy Velghe of the pan-European (Breton-Belgian-Scottish-whatever) group Orion. “Except that this spaghetti is alive.” This fest-noz will feature groups ranging from two singers belting out highly rhythmic melodies to a 25-piece bagad (a huge Breton ensemble modeled after the Scottish pipe bands, featuring a large number of bombards, five or six Scottish bagpipes, and several drums). Not surprisingly, the bagad uses little additional amplification, for which we are all a bit thankful.
Like Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, the Brittany region of France is a Celtic nation full of music, folklore, and a language separate from the governing culture. (It is separate enough from France culturally that sometimes when you leave Brittany you will see a road sign welcoming you to France.) I came to Brittany in 1995 to study bow making with graduates of the bow-making school in Mirecourt, France. Initially I worked with Benoît Rolland, one of the first graduates of the school (class of ’74) and the inventor of the Spiccato carbon-fiber bow. My second, and current, master is Georges Tepho, who was the final graduate before the school closed in 1981. Both men have a deep love of listening to and playing music. Rolland is a fine classical violinist and occasional composer, while Tepho’s playing emphasizes Irish and Breton music.
In fact, Monsieur Tepho’s workshop has become a center for violin players who interpret Breton music. I talked to Christian LeMaître when he stopped by to visit the shop recently. He’s a leading fiddler known for his work in the groups Kornog and Storvan. He is also well known in the United States for his tours and recordings with Kevin Burke and Johnny Cunningham as part of the Celtic Fiddle Festival. LeMaître told me that the fiddle is a recent addition to Breton music; it first made its contribution as a simple accompaniment to the playing of others, such as singer-harpist Alan Stivell and the group Sonerien Du. In the late 1970’s inspired by Irish groups such as the Bothy Band, fiddlers began to play with their role in Breton music, gradually bringing the instrument to the fore. Kornog was one of the first groups to play Breton music without the bombard. Now, says LeMaître, more and more young people are taking up the fiddle and playing Breton music on it.
There is an ancient but continuing tradition of highly rhythmic singing to accompany dancing, similar to lilting in Irish music. There were many times when people wanted to have a dance but musicians were not available. To fill this void, singers developed an extremely powerful, steady but syncopated singing style whose rhythms are based on the regional dances and on the outer limitations of human lung capacity. The lyrics are often nonsensical rhymes whose patterns fit that of the dance. LeMaître sees all fiddling coming out of this singing tradition. "Every fiddler is a singer," he told me. This is echoed by the enthusiasm of Fanch Landreau, formerly the violinist with the group Skolvan. I asked Landreau if I could visit him to learn more about the music. "Oh, yes, great," he replied. "I can take you around to meet all the singers I've learned from!” I found it very interesting that he was eager to have me meet singers, rather than other instrumental musicians. This shows the emphasis that these fiddlers put on interpretation of the voice through their instruments.
Breton music has many similarities to Irish music, but it is also very different. “Many people think it sounds closer to Arabic music than Irish," LeMaître tells me. He also feels that regional styles of Breton music are much more distinct than those in Ireland. Many small towns have their own tunes and dances in rhythms unique to the area. One example is a dance form called the hanterdro, which is in six beats. There is a tremendously strong emphasis on the fourth beat, so that the structure is sung "one, two, three, four, one, two. One, two, three, four, one, two." It sounds like a measure with four beats followed by a measure with two beats, over and over again. Balanced against and intertwined with this rhythm is the melody, which seems to stop and start at will, at least to my American, 4/4-trained ears. And this hanterdro is just one of at least a dozen of the main rhythmic variations found in Breton music. "If you try to understand it, you will become confused," explained a dancing friend. "If you just feel it, you will be hypnotized."
"There’s no 'boom-chucka-boom' in Breton music," says LeMaître. He means that the rhythmic and melodic structure of Breton music doesn't lend itself to a classic western 4/4 time structure nor, therefore, to a country-western or rock 'n' roll 4/4 beat. It's all tied into the Breton dance structure. When LeMaître explains a tune, his hands mimic the motions a dancer's feet would make. Many a Breton musician has had to teach me a dance before teaching me the tune. "If it's not in your feet, it won't get to your hands," said one.
But do the younger fiddlers learn fiddling? "Now, occasionally, there will be fiddling workshops," says LeMaître. Ten years ago there were very few, and they were very general. Now a workshop may spend a whole day concentrating on just the nuances of one dance rhythm, such as a gavotte. But, he says, the really good musicians are searching out older singers and learning fiddling from songs. Adds Landreau, "The fascinating thing about Breton fiddling is we're really starting the tradition right now."
Another recent tradition is the development of the bagad. With its umpteen bombards, drums, and highland bagpipes (and occasionally the Breton bagpipe, known as the binou), the bagads are impressive just for their raw power, as well as their ensemble skill. The first bagad was started as a way to preserve traditional music that was dying during the 1940s and ‘50s. Now many towns in Brittany have their own bagads. At the most recent Festival de Cornouaille, held in Quimper, there were more than 30 bagads in the main parade, and each bagad’s members wore traditional vests associated with their town.
Bagads have pervaded Breton culture so strongly that they can even influence major transactions. A friend of mine was considering buying a house in a town outside of Quimper. The schools were very good in this town, the real-estate agent assured him--and, equally important, the town bagad had placed second in the most recent national competition. The agent seemed to have information on most of the bagads associated with various pieces of property he represented.
Then there was the first time I visited my barber. Quickly sensing that I was not a local--not difficult, considering my French--he asked if I could help him with a translation. His new set of Malaysian-made Scottish bagpipes had arrived, and the assembly instructions were in a rather garbled version of English. Words like O-ring were not included in his small French-English dictionary. Luckily I only had to point to the O-rings and didn’t have to search for the French word for them. He told me all about his bagad, which is composed of people over the age of 40, with some in their 80s. When you consider that the group makes appearances in traditional wool costumes in midsummer’s 95-degree heat, you have to appreciate the dedication produced by these people’s love of their music and culture.
Even the French navy has a bagad, which practices on an aircraft carrier. Sometimes the bagad has to stop practicing so that the control tower can hear the jets taking off.
Because of the influence of the bagads, many Breton children commence playing traditional music at an early age. By the time they’re in their early teens, quite a few of them are whizzes on their bombards, bagpipes, or accordions. Quite often they fall under the influence of Irish music around this age and take up the corresponding Irish instruments, so there is a large number of very good flute players and Irish bagpipes in Brittany. I’d say there is a higher concentration of good pipers in Brittany than in most parts of Ireland, and I’ve lived in Ireland. While the number of fiddle players is relatively low, there are enough good musicians, Bretons and expatriate Irish, to keep a session scene alive. (The bad news it that, as anywhere, there are too many bodhran players.)
Both Breton and Irish music are featured at the two main Breton festivals, the Festival de Cornouaille, held in Quimper the last week of July, and the Festival InterCeltique, held in L’Orient the first week in August. Both festivals feature venues large and small, as well as sessions in pubs. The L’Orient event also includes the annual World Bagad Championship. If anyone offers to place a wager, it isn't wise to bet against perennial champs Bagad Kemper. This group has a number of CDs available on the 20-year-old Keltia Musique label. Its recordings feature the whole of the Breton music tradition, from the very traditional binou-bombard duets and duet singing to modern fest-noz groups and bagads, as well as the cross-Celtic rock hybridizations of Dan Ar Braz and well-known singer Gilles Servat. (The company has a retail store in Quimper, conveniently located next door to the bow shop of Georges Tepho, where I plane out bow sticks many mornings of the week. It will also soon be on-line at www.keltiamusic.com. A good sampler of a fest-noz is available on the disc Fest-Noz Live, which features Skolvan, Bagad Kemper, and smaller duets and singing groups.)
As for the violin shops over here, I have found many similarities, and a few differences, to American shops. One similarity is that everyone has his own favorite viola joke. Another is that few of the viola jokes are particularly good. On the other hand, one difference is that a repairer will often pick up the phone to tune an instrument, rather than a tuning fork, because the dial tone in France is an A440. Talk about a civilized country!
Back at our local fest-noz, the living plate of spaghetti is going strong at four in the morning. I see a few of the bartenders from the local all-night discotheque out on the floor dancing. They have the night off, because the local disco owner calls in a smaller staff when there's going to be a fest-noz in town--he knows where most of the dancers will be. The rest of the time, the last dance at a Breton disco is usually a Breton dance. Even in the most modern of venues, the traditional music of Breton closes the night.
Kenavo!
Matt Wehling
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