Alan Stivell   •   Celtic Symphony

---

• Sonerien ha Kanerien (interpreters)
  • Alan Stivell: Pib-Veur (Scotish Bagpipes), Irish Flute, Bombard, Harpes, Vocals
  • Chris Hayward: Transverse Flutes, Oriental Drums And Others
  • Robby Finkel, Michel Prezman, Dominique Widiez: Claviers (Keyboard)
  • Marc Perru: Guitars
  • Mikael Valy: Bass
  • Roger Secco: Drums
  • Padrig Kerre: Fidil (Violin), Mandola, Bodhran
  • Daniel Herve: Uillean Pipes
  • Youenn Sicard, Dominique Leboucher, Christian Faucheur, Roland Becker: Bombard
  • Hervé Renault, Bruno Lerouzic, Armel Denis, Hubert Raud: Pib Veures
  • Yann Fañch Ar Merdy, Loeis Roujon: Scottish Drums
  • Roger Berthier, Michel Cron, Pierre Defaye, Jean Gaunet, Didier Saint-Aulaire, Pierre Couzinier, Lucien Pérotin, John Cohen: Violins
  • Christos Michalakakos, Rene Brisset, Claude Dambrine, Jean-François Benatar, Daniel Faidherbe, Pierre Cheval, Remi Brey: Violas
  • Michel Lacrouts, Jean Lamy, Jacques Wiederker, William Stahl, Jean-Charles Capon, Jean-Jacques Wiederker, Audin: Cellos
  • Willy Lockwood, Wes Chavert: Double Bass
  • Emile Mayousse, Michel Descarsin, Claude Maisonneuve: Oboes
  • Pierre Gossez: Soprano Saxophone
  • Daniel Neuranter, Micheal Aucante, Marc Rollfèri, Jean-Louis Fiat: Bassoons
  • Michel Tavernier, Francis Pottiez: Double Bassoons
  • Jean-Jacques Justafre, Wes Valada, Patrick Petitdidier, Jean-Paul Quennesson: Horns
  • Bernard Marchais, Guy Bardet: Bugles
  • Vocal ensemble directed by Christiane Legrand with Nicole Darde, Anne Germain, Claudine Meunier, Jean Cussac, Josè Germain, Anton Elder, Michel Barouille, Joseph Noves, Francois Walle
  • Djurdjura (group of Algerian women): Berber chant
  • Marie-Jose Cochevelou: spoken text
  • Maire Fenton: Irish chanteuse
  • Una Ramos: kena
  • Narenda Bataju: sitar
  • Mrs. Bataju: tampura

• Credits
  • Alan Stivell: Sonerezh (musical composition)
  • Christopher Hayward, Michel Prezman, Alan Stivell: Binviaouegañ (arrangement)
  • Sondapet (recording):
    • Patrice Queff — Studio Miraval
    • Bruno Lambert — Studio Grande Armee
    • Guy Salmon — Studio 10
    • Benoit Kauffman, Charles Raucher — Studio Johanna
    • Gilbert Grenier — Studio 1 Le chien jaune;
    • Alain Cluzeau assisted by Michel Etchegaray and Richard Gallet — Studio Acousti
  • Mixing: Kemmesket
  • Mastering: Roland Michel — Studio Berthier
  • Texts: Alan Stivell
  • Adaptations:
    • Algonquin (North American Indian) — Bernard Assiniwi
    • Berber — Djura
    • Sanskrit — Marie-Claude Porcher
    • Tibetan — Pema Dorjee
    • Irish — Denis Hegarty & Jim Armstrong
    • Quechua (South American Indian) — O. Gutierrez, L. Cornejo
  • Breton mantra from the first century A.D. from Michel Fournier
  • Photo: "Stonehenge" from Roman Polanski's "Tess"
  • Production: Alan Stivell
  • Jacket Design: Richard Spencer

---

Sleeve Notes

"Celtic Symphony." I know that sounds pretentious, but what name can you give an hour and a half piece composed of three long movements, played by seventy-five musicians and singers, and whose main influence is Celtic?

My choice of words in the title is little influenced by Cartesianism; it is not chosen to indicate any binding and static definition, but rather tendencies, orientations, the dynamic evocation of influences. So the "Celtic" term connotes a central influence and frees me from any strict obedience to the rules of the classical symphony born within the courts of Central Europe, very far from our islands and blue-green peninsulas. The predominant Celtic influence connotes the place where I live and the people immediately surrounding me.

Of Breton nationality, I am a citizen of the world. I try to express a world without boundaries but diverse in its ethnocultures, a world of exchanges, of intermingling and intermarrying, but without domination or standardization; what is more, there cannot be true intermingling unless differences persist. Pre-industrial popular music knew a certain unity from one antipode to the other and was at the same time rich in subtle differences.

Why shouldn't the new "post-industrial" New Music of the third millennium also be one and diverse? I am convinced that the outcome of the different current musical researches will be a synthesis, a fusion of jazz, of Indian and other Oriental musics, of African music, rock, what we call contemporary music, older classical music, European folk music and various other forms. These interinfluences constitute the immense opportunity of our era, this better knowledge of others could lead to respect for the other. What we few are attempting in music is also happening in medicine on a large scale, a synthesis being made of official Western medicines and oral African and Chinese traditions, etc. In no time at all we could gain a century or two. The tension between influences and the upholding of differences is a creative dialect. We mustn't be afraid of this evolution.

I wanted to express three tensions, superimposed, which are but within us: the individual tension of going beyond oneself, the communal tension towards the Ideal Society, the universal tension towards the Absolute, the Infinite, God. Then I tried to evoke this perfect harmony as in a dream, we must shamelessly glimpse this (poor relative beings that we are) to find the clear water which gives us the force to advance.

In this symphony, I also wanted to include minority cultures whose closeness to the Celts goes back to antiquity, from the intervals in sound, our scales and our ways of thinking, our relationship with nature and the cosmos, from our hatred of the State, Their cohabitation on this record emits perfumes of lost paradise. As regards the Celtic influences, they are more particularly from Vannetais, Upper-Cornwali, bagad music, medieval harp and Welsh penillion music, from classical bagpipe music, from Donegal, from the Hebrides Islands.

I do not think this symphony is really megalomaniac. What is more natural than a painter wanting to use all the ranges of color of the rainbow? All he needs is a palette that fits into his hand. In music, the minimum for an undertaking like this is seventy-five musicians. But if this symphony is on a grander scale than everything I have done up till now, even if it has taken twenty one years to prepare it, don't expect perfection! There are probably several lives left for me to spend on earth.

Tir Na Nog opens the second spiral of my quest.

— ALAN STIVELL

---

• Side A — Kelc'h Unan: First circle
  • Beaj d'an Ec'honderiou Diabarzh — voyage to our inner spaces
  • Hiraezh d'an Arnser dremenet ha da-zoned — nostalgia for the past and the future
    • "Gwerz 1" and "Loch ar Goulenn" — "Song 1" and "Profound lake that I interrogate"
  • Divodan en Holl Veur — dissolution in the Great All (individual death, destruction of the first Keltia, world wars, atomic war, universal cataclysm)

• Side B — Kelc'h Daou: Second circle
  • Emskiant newez tost d'ar Mann en Eil Bed kenstur regaining consciousness near the Nothingness in the second parallel world
  • Kendaskren Gant an Hollved — vibratory communion with the universe
  • Imram d'an Insienn — in quest of the Isle
  • Dilestran war Inis gWenva — landing on Blissful Isle, the isle of the Pure World, the third world (or the third life, that of perfection or harmony)

• Side C — Kelc'h Tri: Third circle
  • Ar C'hammou Kentañ war an Insienn — first steps on the Isle
  • Kawadenn Ar Geoded Skedus: Tir Na Nog — discovery of the Radiant City
  • Ar Bale Trema 'R Geoded — the march towards the City

• Side D
  • Gouel Hollvedel — universal festival
  • An Distro trumm e-barzh ar Bed Keñverel ha Goulenn — sudden return to the relative and interrogative world