Halfdan Kjerulf

Halfdan Kjerulf ( born September 17, 1815 in Christiania; † August 11, 1868 ) was a Norwegian composer.

Life

Originally studied Kjerulf in the tradition of his father Jura. Shortly before his graduation in 1839 he was seriously ill, however, and drove in the summer of 1840 to recover from Paris. Here he came into contact with the active musical life of the Viennese Classical and early Romantic music. Kjerulf heard Hector Berlioz.

In winter 1840/1841 Kjerulfs sister died, just as his father and brother. And when the eldest child he had to make for the family and was a foreign correspondent for the Norwegian newspaper The Constitutionelle. During this time, in the autumn of 1841, was his first composition. In 1845 he finished his work as a journalist and became a music teacher. At Carl Arnold Kjerulf studied music theory. He received scholarships in Copenhagen with Niels Wilhelm Gade, and later at Leipzig, where he completed his training at age 35.

In 1851 he returned to Christiania, and was again a music teacher. In the last years of his life Kjerulf was heavily plagued by diseases.

Work

While his romances and choral songs are best known today, Kjerulf also wrote many works for the piano. In Kjerulfs work, the influence of German Romanticism ( Schumann and Mendelssohn ) is most significant. Similarly, the influence of Norwegian folk music is not to be underestimated.