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Sleeve Notes
This disc is mainly focused on the popular song of "Pays Gallo", the name given to the "Eastern" half of Brittany.
We made this choice to respond to a certain number of misconceptions caused by the current popularity of Breton Song.
Simplistic ideas since we have reduced the "real" Breton song too much to the song in the "Breton language". It is of course the most obvious aspect, but not the only aspect. Indeed, we have ignored (or wanted to ignore) that more than half of Brittany is of Welsh culture (that is to say French-speaking).
Is it the fault of the inhabitants of this "Gallo" country if the Breton language never reached Rennes or Nantes, and if their cultural heritage is therefore French-speaking … Is there is something shameful about this and these Gallo-Bretons must deny their past, thus encouraging a cultural genocide, equivalent to that which the central power has been so rightly accused of regarding "Breton" culture ( that is to say in the Breton language) …
Our Welsh culture has as much value as any other and is in any case no less Breton. The linguistic limit has never been a "border" in Brittany. It does not correspond to anything in terms of the Breton character of the song. In fact, the plinn, the En dro, etc. have always been sung in Breton as in French; the language changes but the character remains the same, the dance countries ignore the linguistic limit. Another observation: the theme of the "complaint of the white doe" (song in French) makes it more Celtic than any gavotte from Lower Brittany.
Welsh Brittany has more than two million inhabitants. Their name "Hauts-Bretons" had already earned them the nickname "Sots-Bretons" at the time of Bécassine. This racism has lasted too long, is it really useful to seek vain arguments for it which can only playing into the hands of those who want to weaken Brittany by dividing it.
Original French translated via Google Translate.