Throughout his life Tournier wrote four sets each of three Images for harp, each like a painting in music, hence their title, Images.

This original solo harp piece depicts children at a Christmas crib and conveys the sanctity of the church environment where the crib is found and the awe and wonder of the children with a sense of transfiguration above and beyond the painted wooden figures which they are viewing. 

This second set of Images was published in 1925 three years after Tournier’s marriage to René Lenars.

The suite is dedicated to Henrik Boye, one of Tournier’s students who himself became a harpist. He was born in 1925 and went on to become the solo harpist with the Danish State Radio Orchestra and also to transcribe many keyboard works for solo harp.

Tournier (1879 – 1951), who I have to say is one of my harp inspirations, was a student of Alphonse Hasselmans at the Paris Conservatoire, gaining his Premier Prix there after only four years of harp study in 1899. He won the very prestigious Second Prix de Rome for composition in 1909. 

Other people who had received this prestige included none less than his friend Debussy and earlier composers such as Berlioz and Bizet. Also in 1909, Tournier won the Prix Rossini and recognition by the Institut de France for his orchestral playing. 

Tournier subsequently became professor of harp at the Paris Conservatoire himself and held that position until he retired in 1948. Although Tournier’s harp career was wide ranging, he loved above all, to write for the instrument. I think his understanding of the instrument and its timbres glows through his writing and it is said that he focussed on tone production in his teaching. 

His compositional style includes many contemporary influences and features and his real accomplishment is in translating these into idioms which sound completely natural on the harp.