Advent Calendar – 1st December – Six Noels 1
Merry Christmas!
Danielle and Dave’s Advent Calendar, 2021
1st December, 2021
Six Noëls pour la Harpe ~ op 32 no 1
Marcel Tournier
The word Noël is generally translated as Carol but I feel that these Six Noëls mostly feature a radiant carillon quality in their sound with perhaps the exception of the first which combines melodic simplicity with lush chords, rather like his other simpler and shorter harp solos such as Soupir and Offrande or the Quatre Préludes.
These exquisite miniatures which were published in 1926 were dedicated to Madame Pierre Collet.
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.
Recorded on David Concert Harp
Nineteenth-and Twentieth-Century Harpists: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook.
Wenonah Milton Govea.(Bio-Crit-ical Sourcebooks on Musical Performance.)
Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995.