Track Listing

1. J'y Suis Jamais Alle
2. Les Jours Tristes (instrumental)
3. La Valse D'Amelie
4. Comtine D'un Autre Ete: L'apres Midi
5. La Noyee
6. L'autre Valse D'Amelie
7. Guilty
8. A Quai
9. Le Moulin
10. Pas Si Simple
11. La Valse D'Amelie (orchestra version)
12. La Valse Des Vieux Os
13. La Dispute
14. Si Tu N'etais Pas La
15. Soir De Fete
16. La Redecouverte
17. Sur Le Fil
18. Le Banquet
19. La Valse D'Amelie (piano version)
20. LaValse Des Monstres

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2439 in Music
• Released on: 2001-11-06
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack

Album Description
Amelie: Original Soundtrack Recording

Amazon.com
This sunny comic fable from idiosyncratic director Jean-Pierre Jeunet (City of Lost Children, Alien Resurrection, Delicatessen) boasts any number of intimate charms, not the least of which is Yann Tiersen's warmly inviting score. Composer and multi-instrumentalist Tiersen's work and training may have masterfully encompassed classical, pop, and rock, but his delightful Amélie music proves he is slave to none. In this, his fourth soundtrack, Tiersen displays an impressive command of idiom and melodic subtlety that's rightfully drawn comparisons to the great Nino Rota. With a Paris-set story driven by blossoming love, the composer frequently leans on the familiar Parisian street accordion motif as a starting point. If that sounds clichéd, it's anything but; Tiersen's delicate touch incorporates Gypsy flourishes, classical string ensembles, electronics, stark and lovely solo piano, and even minimalist technique--often in the same charming cue. The result is music that manages to sound variously breezy, fresh, and contemporary, yet somehow comfortably familiar. Amélie is a warm, postmodernist score that never forgets where its heart lies. --Jerry McCulley

Customer Reviews

Best soundtrack of 2001
Every year there ends up being one or two original movie scores that really blow me away. In 1999, the soundtrack to the musical South Park movie was the bomb, and there was also Thomas Newman's American Beauty score. In 2000 there was the dark and ambient Virgin Suicides score by Air and the horrifying Requiem For a Dream music by Clint Mansell. For 2001, Yann Tiersen's Amelie score takes the cake. The movie, if you don't know, is about a quirky girl who lives in Paris. She cultivates a fine taste for the smaller pleasues in life. She comes across a box in her apartment left by a boy 40 years ago, sets out to return it to him, and then discovers that it's her life's calling to brighten people's days. The score is somewhere between Nino Rota's Amarcord and The Godfather music. The mood is fun, tinged with sadness. It's like carnival music with a Fellini funeral procession, and a touch of sheer magic thrown in for good measure.

I was surprised to find out that not all of this music was written specifically for Amelie. Yann Tiersen is a guy who, apparently, records by himself and is a veritable Einstein of musical instruments. He plays accordion, guitar, bass, banjo, piano, harpsicord, mandolin, vibraphone, and toy piano among other things. The dominant instruments are accordion and piano, for your information. Apparently he's recorded a bunch of albums already, and some of his old tunes are on here, although you wouldn't be able to pick out the old from the new, except for the fact that some of Amelie songs have the recognizable Amelie "valse," or "waltz," in them.

This is the perfect mix of European classical music and experimentalism. A number of the songs are waltzes and would fit in fine with a period film. This compliments the movie because Amelie herself looks like an old movie star put into a post-modern film. The music is the same way. "Pas Si Simple" starts with a typewriter clicking and clacking and that becomes the percussion of another waltz. The orchestral version of "La Valse D'Amelie" is complimented by the toy piano to childishly magical effect. "Soir De Fete" sticks out from the accordion and piano-dominated songs with its mandolins and handclaps, and it ends with a music box playing "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah." It's a strangely unnerving song. The seven-minute "Sur Le Fil" features some really dextrous violin work, again, done by Tiersen. Overall, it will make you feel like you've been to Paris, seen a circus and a funeral procession, walked around a bit, and then come back. And it will make your day much better.

Great music, but.....
For any that have not seen this movie nor heard the music, you are missing one of the greatest of all time. This is a must see movie, and once you see it, you will want the music.
This CD however, is the same as the Amelie soundtrack with the green cover, that costs about 30 dollars less! The only difference of this cd is the cover, which was marketed for japan. Do not waste money on this cd, get the soundtrack with the green cover.

Love, Dreams, and Amelie
This is my first review. All my senses are telling me not to write anything; but, I must say something about this work of song.

My best friend came to visit me from home during Thanksgiving. He wanted to watch Amelie in the old theater we have because he knew it would take such a long time to get to Puerto Rico. I went in because I love movies and I was also intrigued by what I had seen of it.

My heart was ambushed. The story played before me and love filled my soul. The music was a warm, slow, and gentle stream flowing through me, threatening to spill through my fingertips. Comtine D'un Autre Ete: L'apres Midi, the first of Amelie's masterpieces. Once this song was played, I was hooked, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, along with Yann Tiersen, had my full attention.

Though without a doubt, the director of Amelie did a spectacular job of movie making, without the music of Yann Tiersen, it would never have been as powerful. When La Valse D'Amelie played, I felt like standing up and dancing as a fool. The first love I had ever felt for my girlfriend returned and made me want to laugh so hard, and be so happy, that I almost cried a little for not having the courage to do it then and there. (Then again, it might have been because some foreign film-junkie would have order me to sit my behind down again)

And then they played Pas Si Simple, and I was back in the small cobblestone streets of Paris riding my bycicle faster and faster though I have never traveled once there, maybe in some other life perhaps, but faster and faster as people passed me quickly and I caught a faint view of them waving though I kept going down the winding streets, of Paris.

Im sorry. I dont usually speak this way. I like it when people tell me of something they love or admire and put it in the words that their soul demands. However, to speak of this music, I have to try my very best to describe its beauty.

Beauty, and beautiful. Two words I do not take likely.

These songs, this music, are beautiful.