Alan Stivell: Renaissance of the Celtic Harp (1971)

Alan Stivell, from Brittany, is by far one of my all-time favorite Celtic artists, and he had quite a varied career from rock-oriented material to New Age and everything in between. Renaissance of the Celtic Harp, known in France as Renaissance de la Harpe Celtique, obviously focuses on the Celtic harp.

This out of the way: I have never been big on Celtic music but Alan Stivell really creates music that convinces me. Alan Stivell is a multi-instrumentalist and aside from Celtic harp, also plays bagpipes, bombarde (a double-reed instrument), amongst others. I own an American cassette reissue of this on the Rounder label, which has a different cover (it was reissued in the 1980s, which shows an older Alan Stivell, who was starting to gray).

The opening song, “YS” apparently goes through several movements, with tons of beautiful harp playing, plus some use of cello and Irish whistles. The album only has five cuts, including the side-length “Gaeltacht”, which goes through several movements as he covers Breton, Irish, Scottish, Manx, and Welsh music. Here you get treated with some fiddle playing, some bagpipe playing, but of course the focus is the harp, as is the rest of the album.

Alan Stivell was one of the few Celtic artists of interest in prog rock fans, and for some reason, this album reminds me of a more acoustic Anthony Phillips (like The Geese & The Ghost), although of course, with a stronger Celtic bent. This is a truly wonderful and beautiful album of Celtic harp music that I highly recommend.