In my case the Musical Heritage Society agrees with the late J. Keats that "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter". Hence when I wrote up, a while ago, notes on an LP by the Bagad Kadoudal of Rennes, my ears were as virgin as my eyes to Brittany and things Breton, and I had to rely entirely on secondary sources and my own perfervid imagination. (In sum, I followed my training as a literary-scholar!) Afterwards, in due course, the postman brought me the record, which I found lively and often beguiling; more importantly my wife abandoned whatever it is she does in her studio long enough to ask what it was, a gesture which indicates extraordinary approval in her case. I might add, however, that forty minutes of massed bagpipes and shawms may prove a bit much, unless one is a Breton or likes the notion of the instrumental equivalent of a choir of Selma Diamonds.

Not to be caught out again, I made a point of becoming authoritative on Brittany itself by visiting it for some fifty hours in June, and should like to record my observations here. The former ducal capital, Nantes, offers (1) a modern hotel on an eerily uninhabited river-island; (2) a tragically burned-out cathedral; (3) an art museum specializing in the works of obscure nineteenth century academics; (4) some of the most incomprehensible traffic patterns in Europe. Starting from there, we set forth on a circuit of the coast, but immediately took a side excursion into an area called la Grande Briere, said to be overflowing with quaintness. We must have taken the wrong road (one-lane) for all we saw for two hours was marsh grass, an occasional tumbledown thatched cot­tage, an ever-receding steeple, and a faded, hand-lettered cardboard sign advertising a fest-noz (night festival) two weeks earlier. Next came the fashionable seaside resort of La Baule which offered two miles of hotels facing two miles of beach, both rendered lifeless by a spell of chilly weather. By an ingenious process of getting lost, which is a family secret, we found ourselves in the little walled city of Guerande, where we acquired nagging abdominal discomfort from overindulging in fish soup and cold prawns with mayonnaise. Since the day was wearing on, we had not yet encountered a single menhir, pardon, coif, shawm, calvary, or word of spoken Breton, we headed to Vannes where we planned to hole up and see the sights of the area. After getting thoroughly lost for a while, we were made to understand it was the time of Les vacances, in which Englishmen, Holland­ers, and Belgians occupy all the hotel space on the Atlantic coast, except at La Baule, which is presumably too expensive. Defeated and disheartened, we set out for Rennes, where we figured no tourist in his right mind would go in midsummer. En route we passed through Ploermel, the scene of Meyerbeer's opera "Dinorah," which has a number of gasoline stations. We also had the opportunity to study the rear ends of several large trucks or "heavyweights" as the French so amusingly term them. Rennes provided a comfortable hotel overlooking a shopping mall and some urban renewal, and inhabited by a gaggle of Americans on their way to Lourdes, where presumably they would be. absolved of the sauces that ruined their food and the inexplicable lack of Alka-Seltzer in France. Next day we went on to Rouen, and that is all I know about Brittany.

The present record was made there on location at Mael-Carhaix, which is halfway between Quimper and Guingamp, and only a mehir's throw from Carhaix­Plouguer, or about as far out in the boonies as you can get. The occasion was a sort of memorial to a young man who seems to have been a moving force in the Breton cultural revival, and the fest-noz includes songs and dances as well as the inevitable kadoodling. The athletic con­tests, which are in integral part of such celebrations, are unfortunately not preserved.