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Sleeve Notes
Alan Stivell was born in 1944. By the age of 5 he had begun studying the piano. Three years later his father Jord Cocheveleau built Alan his own Celtic harp and in November 1953 Alan made his first stage appearance at the Maison de la Bretagne playing the harp. Since then Alan has added Bombarde, Bagpipes and flute to his repertoire.
Alan made his first album 'REFLECTIONS' which created a phenomenal response, in France, to his music. Since then he has taken his place in the forefront of a new breed of folk musicians. Politically aware, alert not just to musical innovations and departures but to all the winds of change in society. A Breton by birth, he believes that ethnic cultures should not only be preserved but revitalised. He has lifted Celtic music from a confined and restricted category, set it in a rock format and made it into a living form. In May, 1971, he won 1st prize at the Folk Song Festival of Killarney in May 1972. ALAN STIVELL AT THE OLYMPIA won the Grand Prize of the Academy Charles Cros and in December 1973, Melody Maker voted him Folk Personality of 1973 and voted CHEMINS DE TERRE as the Folk Album of that year.
Alan Stivell draws his music from the Celtic traditions of Brittany, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Cornwall. He uses folk music in a unique and pure fashion, the delicacy of the harp extracting all the poignancy and pathos of Celtic memory.
In November 1974, Alan Stivell gave two live concerts at the National Stadium in Dublin. Both concerts were total sell outs and, at the end of his set each night, the entire audience rose to its feet, linked hands and danced to the compelling Celtic harmonies.
ALAN STIVELL - IN DUBLIN, captures on album the complexity and charm of Stivell's music, plus the atmosphere of an audience of 2000 enthralled enthusiasts.
DELIVERANCE
The time of deliverance has come
Yet all thoughts of revenge are far away from our minds
We shall keep our friendship with the people of France
But we shall breakdown those shameful barriers
Which prevent us from looking across the sea
Those boundaries which keep us away from our closest brothers
In Wales, Scotland and Ireland
And we, whose name is known by the birds of Brittany
Which has been banished from all of the human languages
From all the libraries and from all the maps of the world
We, the peasants and fishermen shall open our hearts
To all the peoples of the planet Earth
And we will present our eyes to the world
Is it pretentious to believe that we are equal?
Is it asking too much to want to live?
We will make the rain fall on this devastated world
And cleanse the thick blood which feeds those
Whom these very same powers feed upon
And give satisfaction to those who thirst for justice
And the leaves will grow again in Brittany and in Spain
From Mali to Chili from Indo China to Palestine
Brittany centre of the inhabited world you will be
A refuge for the hunted and poisoned birds
For the tortured women in prison
For the world weary old ones
Celtia from the meeting place of the peoples of the north
And of the south to the borders of the old world
And of the new world to the frontiers of the earth
And of the sea to the limits of this world
And the next …
A literal translation from Alan Stivell's poem Deliverance