What is this thing called Brittany?

Brittany (Bretagne in French, Breizh in Breton) is the westernmost region of France, forming a peninsula that extends into the Atlantic Ocean. Until its annexation by France in 1532, it was an independent country. It has a green, rolling landscape and a strong Celtic identity, similar to those of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Galicia (in Spain). Much of the population is descended from Welsh and Cornish immigrants who came to Brittany in the fifth and sixth centuries CE, fleeing famine, overpopulation, and Anglo-Saxon raiders. 

Brittany is historically bilingual. These days everyone speaks French, but in earlier centuries, the western half of the peninsula (Breizh Izel, or “Lower Brittany”) spoke the Celtic Breton language (Brezhoneg) and the eastern half (Breizh Uhel, or “Upper Brittany”) spoke Gallo, a Romance language closer to today’s French. The Celtic language has suffered under concerted efforts by the French central government to suppress regional cultures, perceived as threats to a unified national republican identity (but tolerated to a limited and superficial extent if they can attract tourists). Still spoken by about 100,000 people, Brezhoneg appears throughout the region in place names and on road signs and can be heard in some regional radio and television programs. It continues to thrive in Breton music.

Breton music was at the core of a cultural revival that fully bloomed in the 1970s. Its most famous exponent was (and remains) the harper and vocalist Alan Stivell, who blended traditional Breton folk melodies and lyrics first with rock and the music of other Celtic countries, expanding further out into collaborations with African and other “world” musicians. Musicians like the vocalist and clarinetist Erik Marchand heard sympathies between Breton music (somewhat more “bent” than its Irish and Scottish cousins) and music from Eastern Europe and the Middle East, recording with Romanian gypsies and Iraqi oud masters. The vocal virtuoso Denez Prigent has blended the Breton tradition of gwerz (plaintive historical ballads) with electronica and trance. Breton music has diversity in its DNA.