Gavin B.

Song of the Day


Yann Tierson: A classicist with a punk sensibility

Soir De Fete- Yann Teirsen The brilliant French contemporary composer Yann Teirsen originally recorded this song for his album, Rue Des Cascades but included it on the soundtrack of the popular French movie Le Fabuleux Destin D'Amelie Poulain a.k.a. Amelie from Montmartre in the English speaking regions of the world. The film became a vehicle for the talents of actress Audrey Tantou. Yann Tiersen's soundtrack was the musical backdrop that captured the visual beauty of the Montmartre district of Paris where most of the location footage for the film was shot by director Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

On this particular song, Soir De Fete, Tiersen is influenced the French/gypsy music which is commonly called "musette." I love the opening with the handclapping and the penny whistle imitating a birdsong. The music is quite mysterious. There are so many different things going on at the same time in Tiersen's music. I love the interplay of the bouzouki (mandolin), the banjo, the squeeze box accordion and the violin in this song.

Did you notice how Tierson ends the song with a fade out of main Soir De Fete melody line, which slowly fades into the sound of an old fashioned music box playing the Al Jolson song Zippidty Doo Dah? It's that sort of signature act of playful irreverance that makes Tiersen such an appealing musical iconoclast.

Tiersen's music has been compared to the classical minimalists like Phillip Glass, Erik Satie, Michael Nyman and Fredrick Chopin, however Tiersen's music is a pastiche of so many exotic, strange and wonderous influences he's become more of a musical globalist.

Tiersen was born in Brittany, France, in 1970 and received classical training at several musical academies, including those in Rennes, Nantes, and Boulogne. Tiersen was a musical prodigy who mastered piano, violin, guitar, accordion, drums before age 12 and now plays nearly every orchestral instrument on his albums and soundtracks. Tiersen frequently uses non-conventional musical instruments like toy piano, banjo, harpsichord, melodica, autoharp, pennywhistle and carillon into his musical compositions.

Tierson's musical oeuvre is far more subversive those of his minimalist peers because Tiersen rebelled against his classical training and is the product of the early Eighties post-punk movement.

In the early 1980s as a teenager he was influenced by the post-punk culture of bands like The Stooges and Joy Division. Tiersen rebelled against his classical training and spent most of his teen years and early twenties playing guitar in post punk bands. At the same time, Tiersen was also composing soundtracks for short films and accompaniment for plays. Several of these pieces ended up on his first album, Valse des Monstres.

Tiersen first obtained noteriety in France for multi-instrumental one-man shows and the theatrical appeal of his playing earned him a spot performing in the Avignon Festival.

What was unusual about Tiersen's music was his own unique pluralistic approach i.e... Tiersen refuses to make any categorical distinctions between his own classical training and the grassroots influences of the ethnic folkways and popular music upon his music. For Tiersen, the Sex Pistols' Anarchy in the U.K. was every bit as valid a musical statement as Fredric Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu, Op. 66. Tiersen frequently borrows elements from his diverse stream of influences like punk, ethic folkways and classical music within the same composition.

Since then Tiersen has collaborated with such noted indie artists as Cocteau Twins' Elizabeth Frazer, Lisa Germano, Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon, and Dominique A.

Tiersen has become a towering figure in contemporary French music but is still under the radar in the United State where he remains a cult figure. For those intrested in Tiersen's music you won't find a better starting point than his 2006 soundtrack to Amelie from Montmartre.



BONUS TRACK: Also embedded below is Kala one of the beautiful songs Tiersen recorded with the Elizabeth Frazer for the soundtrack of the film La Traversée.