And Again

There is something about the sound of French composer Yann Tiersen (of Amélie fame)’s music, a strange, poignant quality. The tracks are largely instrumental, but only minimally so; piano and accordion and violin often layer over other unconventional instruments. Sound is sparse but constant, running, circling ever around and around. It is lively, fluid, lilting, this music.

Timeless at its core, the best of Tiersen’s music seems to revel in individual moments rather than transcending time altogether. Freeze frame. Click, whirr. A handful of Polaroids. Sun-faded corners. Worn wooden floorboards, a cobbled street, the café under striped awning. Whirp. A worn leather-bound book, indolent summers on a green riverbank somewhere.

Perhaps it is more accurate, when making such observations, to specify that we in the end really are examining Tiersen’s scoring of Amélie (2001, full title Le Fabuleau Destin D’Amélie). Its sound draws largely upon Eastern European folk and classical roots, but is not defined by its inspiration. Evocative of quiet idyll, of philosophical reflections on life, the music is at once quaint and familiar, old and new.