2.8 Music

Today, Irish sean-nós ("old style") and Welsh penillion (voice and harp) singing as well as Scottish working songs are familiar from many recordings made both by traditional singers and by others who have learned technique and style from these. Celtic music is as improvisational as jazz, and in the hands of a group like The Chieftains, as glorious as a symphony orchestra. It has the power to rock and roll, though most of the traditional instruments are acoustic. Many of the lyrics and melodies have a history that's centuries old, a heritage that's been handed down over the generations by word of mouth.

The claim that distinctly Celtic styles of music exist was made during the nineteenth century, and was associated with the revival of folk traditions and pan-Celtic ideology. The Welsh anthem "Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau" was adopted as a pan-Celtic anthem. Though there are links between Scots Gaelic and Irish Gaelic folk musics, very different musical traditions existed in Wales and Brittany. Nevertheless, Gaelic styles were adopted as typically Celtic even by Breton revivalists such as Paul Ladmirault.

Celticism came to be associated with the bagpipe and the harp. The harp is considered to be the national instrument of Wales and is used to accompany penillion singing (or cerdd dant) where the harpist plays a melody and the singer sings in counterpoint to it (see App №1, Pict №3). The roots revival, applied to Celtic music, has brought much inter-Celtic cross-fertilisation, as, for instance, the revival by Welsh musicians of the use of the mediaeval Welsh bagpipe under the influence of the Breton binioù, Irish uillean pipes and famous Scottish pipes, or the Scots have revived the bodhran from Irish influence. Charles le Goffic introduced the Scottish Highland pipes to Brittany.

Unaccompanied or A cappella styles of singing are performed across the modern Celtic world due to the folk music revival, popularity of Celtic choirs, world music, scat singing and hip hop rapping in Celtic languages. Traditional rhythmic styles used to accompany dancing and now performed are Puirt a beul from Scotland, Ireland, and Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Sean-nós song from Ireland and Kan ha diskan from Brittany. Other traditional unaccompanied styles sung currently are Waulking song and Psalm singing or Lining out both from Scotland (see App №1, Pict №4).

The emergence of folk-rock led to the creation of a popular music genre labelled Celtic music which "frequently involves the blending of traditional and modern forms, e.g. the Celtic-punk of The Pogues, the ambient music of Enya ... the Celtic-rock of Runrig, Rawlins Cross and Horslips." Pan-Celtic music festivals were established, notably the Festival Interceltique de Lorient founded in 1971, which has occurred annually since (see App №1, Pict №5).

2.9 Festivals

The Scottish Mod and Irish Fleadh Cheoil are seen as an equivalent to the Breton Fest Noz and Welsh Eisteddfod. The birthdays of the most important Celtic Saints of Celtic Christianity for each Celtic nation have become the focus for festivals, feasts and marches: Ireland - Saint Patrick's Day, Wales - Saint David's Day, Scotland - Saint Andrew's Day, Cornwall - Saint Piran's Day, Isle of Man - St Maughold's Feast Day and Brittany - Grand Pardon of Sainte-Anne-d'Auray Pilgrimage.

Attitudes and customs associated with the routine of the year's work, religious beliefs and practices survived the coming of Christianity in the conservative rural areas of much of the Celtic countries. All over these lands there were sacred places which had earned their status in pre-Christian times and which had only been gingerly adopted by the Christian church and given a garnish of Christian names or dedications, hills, stones, and especially wells which can still be seen festooned with rags in observance of an old ritual.

Certain days in the year were marked as festivals, and time was counted forward and backwards from them without reference to the ordinary calendar. In her fine study of the festival of the beginning of harvest, in Irish Lughnasa, Máire MacNeill has demonstrated the continuity between the myth known from the early Middle Ages and the customs which survive to our own day. Lughnasa, called Calan Awst in Welsh, is a summmer feast and was dedicated to the god Lug. Of great interest is the use in the Coligny calendar of the word Saman, a word that is still in use in Gaelic refer to Halloween (evening of the saints), an important day and night and feast among the Celts (in Welsh it is called Calan Gaeaf). In Gaelic folklore, it was considered a particularly dangerous time, when magical spirits wandered through the land, particularly at nightfall. The other important feast days that also continued to be celebrated under Christian guise, but often with a pagan spirit were Imbolc (Gŵyl Fair y Canhwyllau in Welsh) , the start of lambing, now the feast day of St Brigit and Beltane, the spring feast, now May Day (Calan Mai in Welsh).

In their pilgrimages the people combined the celebration of a holy place and a holy day. Pilgrimages are still an important feature of country life, particularly in Ireland, Brittany and Galicia. The most impressive pilgrimages include Croagh Patrick on the west coast of Ireland on the last Sunday in July (the beginning of harvest) and Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. The inspiration for famous Celtic singer and harpist Loreena McKennitt's million-selling CD The Mask and the Mirror came in part from a visit to Galicia and in particular Santiago de Compostela. Some of her songs are about Celtic feast days such as All Souls Night about Samhain on the The Visit CD which featured in the erotic thriller film Jade starring David Caruso and "Huron Beltane Fire Dance" on the Parallel Dreams CD.