Yann Tiersen at the Barbican, gig review: evoking the wild landscape of Ushant in Brittany

Yann Tiersen - photo by Gaelle Evellin

Recording the sounds of his home on the island of Ushant (Eusa in Breton) off the coast of Brittany to tape – the sea dragging stones along the beach, crows calling to one another, the wind across the flat plains – Yann Tiersen has borrowed part of that wild landscape and brought it to London.

Wandering from piano to violin to toy piano and back again in a loose T-shirt and jeans, the slightly awkward way Tiersen moves under the gaze of his audience belies the grace and emotion he evokes with each instrument once he reaches it. Very little is said aside from the odd “thank you” for applause – so much so that those two words eventually add some (perhaps unintended) comic effect to the evening.

At the beginning and midway through the performance a female voice reads the work of Breton poet Anjela Duval. "Porz Goret" is the first track Tiersen unveiled from his new score, and in which the waltzing harmonic progressions add weight to the lightest characters he makes with the right, so filled with yearning it makes your heart ache.

“La Dispute”, while used to depict the idealistic postcard perfection of Amelie’s Montmartre, comes from Tiersen's earlier work and evokes more of the sparsely inhabited island of Ushant Tiersen clearly cares for.

He makes his music so accessible to his audience; he wants them to understand the landscapes that inspire him. Stylistically his work is filled with nostalgia but is also innovative, constantly shifting and seeking to build on that landscape he evokes with each note.

An encore seems devised for the sole purpose of retrieving another beer – Tiersen arrives back onstage with the bottle then sets it down for “Sur le fil”, a chilling violin solo that builds into a ragged, breathless frenzy; Tiersen stomping his foot Romany-style.

It is an abrupt way to finish: Tiersen picks up his beer and flicks on the old-fashioned tape recorder, making his exit as it begins whirring again.