Barzaz Breiz
The
Barzaz Breiz ( "The Plaints of Brittany", Barz refers to "barde" and Breiz means "Brittany") is the collection of
Breton folk tales, legends and music collected by
Théodore Hersart de la Villemarqué and published in
1839. Hersart grew up in the manor of Plessix in Nizon, near
Pont-Aven, half Breton himself. He made a collection of popular songs collected from oral tradition, but was criticised by a later generation of Breton cultural nationalists as having invented a great deal, for he was also half French aristocrat. His rediscovered notebooks have confirmed the authenticity of his finds.
In this book, La Villemarqué reported the score (chorus line) of the songs associated to the texts. It was one of the first attempt to collect and print Breton traditional music, except religious hymns.
Until his publication the "matter of Brittany" was known only from its translation into French romances of the 13th and 14th centuries, in which much of the culture was also transformed to suit Gallic hearers.
The collection achieved a wide distribution, as the
Romantic generation that "discovered" the
Basque language was beginning to be curious about all the submerged cultures of Europe and the pagan survivals just under the surface of folk Catholicism. The
Barzaz Breiz brought Breton folk culture for the first time into European awareness. One of the oldest of the collected songs was the legend of
Ys.
See also
Folk music*[
1]
*
Introduction to Breton music
