Beyond Grieg
A Legacy of Women in Norwegian Music History by Rachel Storlie
Norwegian composers at a Bergen music festival, 1898, showing Agathe Backer-Grøndahl among her male peers. In alphabetical order: Christian Cappelen, Catharinus Elling, Edvard Grieg, Agathe Backer-Grøndahl, Johan Halvorsen, Iver Poul Fredrik Holter, Ole Olsen, Gerhard Rosenkrone Schjelderup, Christian Sinding, Johan Svendsen. Photographer: Karl Anton Peter Dyrendahl Nybli. Oslo Museum, digitaltmuseum.no.
“I do not understand how both you and my parents could object to the fact that I want to become what one calls a female artist. . . It seems to me that a beautiful, independent future for a woman can be found in the simple act of striving, if possible, to be able to present an enjoyable experience to people, especially if that future included a way to travel and to see a little of the world! But time will decide. I just feel that there is something in me that will never give me peace, and which constantly drives me onward . . . for I love art so much that the desire to master it is indescribable.”1 —18 year old Agathe Backer, 18662 Vol. 16, No. 2 2018
W
omen musicians have been thriving around the world for centuries, contributing to the rich and vibrant cultural landscape that reflects both the domestic and public spheres. Academic study of women composers is a burgeoning facet of contemporary musicology, theory, and performance, reflected by trends in equality movements and fueled by society’s continued interest in, and hunger for, new repertoire. Yet many female composers are still unknown, underperformed, or neglected by today’s trained musicians and educators, shedding light on a glaring missed opportunity on the part of our institutions. Marcia J. Citron summarizes: “The most obvious reason is that very little of their music 17
is available, but that is a symptom rather than a cause and reflects various attitudes about art music, canon formation, and women themselves.”3 In an attempt to rectify the situation in a small way, this article focuses on the achievements of three Norwegian women composers: Agathe Backer-Grøndahl, Pauline Hall, and Anne-Marie Ørbeck, all of whom contributed to a rich Scandinavian musical repository that reminds even the most loyal of American Norwegians to embrace and celebrate the classical legacy beyond Edvard Grieg. AGATHE BACKER-GRØNDAHL (born December 1, 1847, died June 4, 1907) Agathe Backer was born south of Oslo in Holmestrand into a comfortable family. Her father Nils was a successful businessperson, and he and wife Sophie were blessed with four daughters gifted in music and art. From the age of three, Agathe, prone to composing short melodies on the family piano, was regarded by her elder sister Harriet as a Wunderkind,4 and at ten years studied formally with wellregarded Halfdan Kjerulf in Kristiania.5 Within seven years, Backer had so impressed her teacher that he recommended she journey to Berlin for deeper study with Professor Theodor Kullak at the Music Academy. Although “her parents did not want their daughter to have a public career, which would have been against all convention,”6 they let her go. Berlin became a successful proving ground for the blooming Backer as she studied hard, composed songs, performed publicly, and developed two pieces for orchestra. By 1868, Backer returned to Kristiania for her debut under the baton of a then-unknown maestro, Edvard Grieg. He had chosen her to play Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto, and the 21-year-old performed to great acclaim, garnering high accolades wherever she went as both pianist and composer. She maintained a full schedule of concerts and was beloved by even the most hardened critics on the national circuit. It is interesting to note that Backer never thought twice about performing her own works alongside Grieg and other European masters like Schumann and Beethoven during a time when humility reigned supreme for so many women. However, Backer was no ordinary woman. She continued to refine her compositional skills through wide-ranging piano forms and romantic songs, many of which were premiered by Grieg’s Danish-Norwegian wife Nina, a classically trained soprano who, “although her voice had lost much of its power because of an illness. . . retained and enhanced her gift of vocal interpretation.”7 The Backer-Grieg trio flourished as Grieg continued to highlight Backer through his subscription-series concerts, and Grieg and Backer dedicated songs to each other in the lyrical, Romantic tradition. As an in-demand pianist, Backer had many regional opportunities for performance with notable figures like Ole Bull, and their artistic relationship led to a solo tour of Italy and Germany for cultural appreciation and further training. Bull arranged for her to take lessons with Hans von Bülow in Florence and with Franz Liszt in Weimar. The crowning gem of this tour was Backer’s opportunity to perform a sample of her own works for the aging Liszt, which were “very well received.”8 Through the early 1870s, Backer toured Scandinavia to high acclaim. Reviews rolled in testifying to her “clear, 18
Portrait of Agathe Backer-Grøndahl. Wikimedia Commons, upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Portrett_av_ Agathe_Backer_Grøndahl.jpg
poetic playing and her strong artistic personality: ‘She has the instrument completely in her power...the wonderful combination of a woman’s grace and a man’s energy.’”9 There was no denying that Agathe Backer had taken “the north” by storm, and was destined for an even brighter future. In 1875, Agathe Backer was swept off her feet by a fetching young man named Olaus Andreas Grøndahl, a singer, teacher, and conductor heavily involved with the Norwegian choral movement. The two maintained a busy schedule of performing and teaching private pupils, but the addition of domestic duties affected Backer-Grøndahl’s compositional output. The couple quickly became a family of five with the addition of three sons, and Agathe suffered bouts of a nerve illness that caused her to become nearly deaf in one ear by her early thirties. Despite this adversity, she did not consider giving up her concert career and continued wowing her audiences with “performances [that] were brilliant, stamped with poetry, authority, and strength.”10 Travel once again called to Agathe, who reached out to Nina Grieg in February of 1888 with hopes of joining Edvard on stage in London’s concert halls. Grieg obliged and paved the trail for her contract with the upcoming season’s engagements abroad. At his request, Agathe coached with Grieg on his quintessential Piano Concerto in A Minor for the premiere during her early weeks in London and once again brought her Midas touch to the premiere and subsequent performances. Concertgoers and critics in London and Birmingham literally went wild, ushering the quiet, blonde Norwegian pianist back onto the stage for five standing ovations! Aalesund’s Seafaring, Trade and Shipping Daily News reported on Saturday, May 30, 1890, “Her performance of Grieg Vesterheim
was astonishing. She understands how to keep the audience enthralled. . . . [Backer-Grøndahl] had, thus, shown from the beginning of the concert that her prowess and artistry was perfect.” The London Times reported that “Mrs. BackerGrøndahl played with extraordinary brilliance and artistic feeling,” and a writer at The Globe recounted, “She showed herself to be a pianist of the highest rank. . . as lucky to be brilliant in her bold playing as she is capable with emotionally expressive powers.” Finally, the Pall Mall Gazette summarized, “Miss Backer-Grøndahl did not pound or thunder on the Steinway, she called on and released its silvery tones with powerful and consistent weight. . . she maneuvered exquisite, delicate transitions. . . with an elasticity that flowed directly from her feelings and deep inner understanding.”11 In a letter to her youngest son Fridtjof, Backer-Grøndahl wrote, “There is no greater happiness than to compose, to create something really beautiful, to draw something from one’s own soul and send it into another.”12 When a major surgery in the 1890s led to further nerve issues, BackerGrøndahl focused more on composition and teaching, achieving a prolific output of over 250 songs and piano pieces by the time of her death in 1907. From humorous miniature pieces geared toward children to sophisticated virtuosic etudes, to late Romantic songs shaded with chromaticism and complex harmonic structures, Backer-Grøndahl made her mark as a composer. However, another letter reveals a side of the “ordinary woman”/artist binary that Backer-Grøndahl later realized she could not escape: “. . .when I reflect on what I could have achieved if I had not lived in this narrow, underdeveloped condition, I am filled with sadness. As it now is, it is small things all together.”13 Although the composer achieved success in “lesser” or “smaller” forms, she never again explored the
Nina and Edvard Grieg, supporters and friends to Agathe BackerGrøndahl, circa 1902. Photographer: L. Szacinski. Oslo Museum, digitaltmuseum.no.
Vol. 16, No. 2 2018
Agathe Backer-Grøndahl with her son Fridtjof, circa 1899. Photographer: L. Szacinski. Oslo Museum, digitaltmuseum.no.
symphonic “large form” writing that she had shown promise with as a young woman in Berlin. Yet she paved the way for other women to write in larger forms, as we will see in testimony from Pauline Hall. Some terrific work is currently afoot at the Grieg Academy in Bergen regarding this national treasure, and it is well worth our time to continue exploring Backer-Grøndahl’s œuvre, for both academic purposes and pleasure. At the turn of the twentieth century, Backer-Grøndahl helped to further advance women’s equality through active participation in the Norwegian women’s suffrage movement, along with her sister Harriet and friend Erika Nissen. Backer-Grøndahl’s cantata Nytaarsgry (New Year’s Dawn) was published in the feminist periodical Nylænde, New Year’s Edition, 1901, and dedicated to feminist pioneer Aasta Hansteen (1824-1908), the self-proclaimed “Joan of Arc” of Norwegian feminism. For those in attendance at the premiere, Backer-Grøndahl’s cantata “became a victory hymn that made them feel that they needed to press forward in their course...a symbol of women’s right to light and air. She interpreted the cantata as a prophecy that love of women and mothers would save the world and humanity.”14 In many ways Agathe Backer-Grøndahl did play by the rules, carving out a life based on the prototype of an “ordinary woman” through marriage and child rearing, yet she always shone as a rare and beautiful beacon—a Norwegian cosmopolitan woman who, by many accounts, “had it all.” While she may not have written a symphony, Agathe BackerGrøndahl boldly redefined what a Norwegian womens place was as a product of her time, through careful and successful maneuvering between public and private spheres. As for her later sentiments about falling short in some way as a composer, it is undeniable that Agathe Backer-Grøndahl imbued her large constellation of compositions with wide-ranging expression and elevated the Norwegian Romantic Song genre beyond Kjerulf ’s or Grieg’s legacy, while defining her career on her terms. 19
PAULINE HALL (born August 2, 1890, died January 24, 1969) “One dares to claim that since Mrs. Grøndahl no female Norwegian composer has had a more fortunate debut...”15
Pauline Hall, circa 1935. Oslo Museum, digitaltmuseum.no.
Another young Norwegian woman took Kristiania by storm during her debut concert on March 7, 1917. Pauline Hall, then 27 years old, was shattering the ceiling through this rare event: performing a program entirely of her own works. As it turns out, we find accounts of concerts organized in Tromsø in 1910-12 with the same self-promotion. Hall was born in Hamar to amateur musician parents Isak (a pharmacist) and Magdalena. She studied at the Hamar Cathedral School and formally trained in composition with Catharinus Elling, and in piano with Johan Backer Lunde, nephew of Agathe Backer-Grøndahl.16 Hall embarked for Paris on a study tour in 1912, where she regularly attended theatrical events and music productions, falling in love with Impressionism (Debussy and Ravel), Stravinsky, and Mussorgsky, whose operas and ballets inspired and “overwhelmed” her. In 1914, Hall studied composition in Dresden with Grieg’s former student Erich Kauffmann-Jassoy, but was prematurely called back to Norway with news of her father’s death. Upon return to Norway, Hall maintained a busy performance and composition calendar, always keen to premiere her own compositions with colleagues whenever possible. After her 1917 “big” debut, Hall became a major force in the establishment of the Norsk komponistforening (Norwegian Society of Composers), and later served on its board.
Pauline Hall at a Music Congress in Aulaen, 1953. On the left, violinist Ernst Glaser. Between Pauline Hall and the microphone, conductor Øivin Fjeldstad is screened. The museum has received contradictory information about who the violinist to the right of Glaser is: Bjarne Gullov Larsen or Kai Angel Næsteby. Photographer: Leif Ørnelund. Oslo Museum, digitaltmuseum.no.
Pauline Hall’s life partner, journalist and feminist Caro Olden, circa 1930-1935. Oslo Museum, digitaltmuseum.no.
According to musicologist Inger Faurdal, Pauline Hall was an overgangskvinde (a woman of transition), who inherited the keys to Norway’s musical scene from predecessor BackerGrøndahl and plunged more deeply into the male-dominated spaces of her contemporary musical culture. This was not lost on Hall, who later expressed gratitude: “Backer Grøndahl has become a banner for Norwegian women composers in Edvard Grieg’s era, an inspiration to those who followed in her footsteps.”17 Hall was not tied down (in the traditional sense) to family or children,18 and was free to pursue what she wanted— finding success in large-form compositions Poème Élégiaque (1920) and the Verlaine Suite (1929) for orchestra. Hall also expanded the Norwegian genres of stage music, composing over 40 scores for plays, films, and ballet, “effectively underpinning the action and the personalities and emotions of the characters.”19 With a seemingly endless abundance of creativity, Hall found ways to stay upwardly mobile and employable that were definitely “outside of the box.” For example, Hall translated opera libretti, wrote music for the NRK program Barnetimen (Children’s Hour), arranged vocal music from a wide variety of genres, founded and led the Pauline Hall Quintet, gave radio lectures, and became a music journalist. Hall’s versatility opened doors for her as she “put her personal mark on the discourses on new music and modernity not only as a composer, but as a critic and commentator in Dagbladet, as well as founder and chairman of Ny Musikk, the Norwegian section of the International Society of Contemporary Music (ISCM) from 1938 to 1961.”20 Hall is admirably remembered for her contributions through the ISCM that led to a phenomenally successful 1953 World Music Fest in Oslo. Pauline Hall was also responsible for introducing new European works to the Norwegian concertgoers. Through a Vol. 16, No. 2 2018
long-term post in Berlin for Dagbladet, Hall once again lived abroad (1926-1932) and reported on contemporary artistic works in context to the culture and politics of Germany and beyond. Completely taken in by Kurt Weill and Berthold Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera, Hall arranged to mount a production of the work in Oslo. She translated the libretto, served as both stage director and maestro, and premiered the work in 1930 to critical acclaim. In fact, Hall’s staging was regularly remounted until the mid-1950s. The multiple hats she wore gained Hall the reputation of a witty and competent personality and allowed her to operate across the spectrum of musical composition, production, and dissemination during a time in which nationalistic trends still loomed in the shadow of Edvard Grieg and Romanticism. From the beginning, Hall was an outspoken opponent of “the kind of musical nationalism that led to cultural isolationism.”21 Ever drawn to musical diversity, the trajectory of her compositional style cycled from French-influenced beginnings through neoclassical to theater/cabaret styles, and borderline post-tonal works by the 1960s. Hall used her journalistic platform as a first-rate and highly respected critic to push Norwegians out of their comfort zone and bring new works to the country. For her lifelong work in the arts, Hall was awarded the King’s Gold Medal of Merit, as well as the rare Statens Kunstnerlønn (a pension funded through the state). Upon news of her passing, colleague Dag Winding-Sorensen wrote in Aftenposten: “As a critic, she united all versatile insights into the problems of the creative and outstanding artists; with clear judgment and outstanding stylistic gift. . . . She was no gracious subscriber to what she perceived as a national endeavor for post-romantic imitation. She had significant opinions and did not mumble when she found it right to sing out. But first and foremost, her criticism was characterized by the love of musical values, and characterized by her zeal to awaken that in others.”22 Musicologists and musicians have been actively programming some of Hall’s signature works in the past decades; however, there is still a long way to go in making her compositions more accessible to artists and listeners. ANNE-MARIE ØRBECK (born April 1, 1911, died June 5, 1996) “No one can escape from his or her origins, but not everyone values them equally highly. For me, however, my folk song heritage is my dearest possession.” —Anne-Marie Ørbeck23 The final featured composer was one of Norway’s “most highly celebrated” during the twentieth century, yet very little information is translated or available online or in American libraries. It is apparent that she was covered often in the Norwegian newspapers for her numerous concert engagements from the 1930s onward, yet many of these papers are only available in person at on-site archives. What is evident is the following: Anne-Marie Ørbeck was a gifted pianist and composer whose socioeconomic situation provided the right combination of variables for a life-long journey of learning, and she became Norway’s first female symphonic composer. Although her soul was fed most deeply through setting text to melody, Ørbeck’s legacy will undoubtedly remain focused on her orchestral works. 21
Anne-Marie Ørbeck was born into a comfortable family in Kristiania, the daughter of businessperson Anton and Inga Louise Larsen. She was the youngest of four siblings, all of whom studied music. Her brother Gunnar would later become a famous Norwegian violinist. Ørbeck desired to become a concert pianist, and found support in her endeavor from hopeful parents who sent her to Berlin for advanced studies with Russian-born pianist Sandra Droucker and German composer Mark Lothar at the age of 19. When Ørbeck returned to Oslo in 1933 for her concert pianist debut with the Philharmonic Orchestra, she was armed with her own virtuosic arrangement of the waltz from Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, and well-perfected piano concertos and cadenzi by Haydn and Mozart. Ørbeck was a sought-after soloist and accompanist who continued to study and compose and, in 1938, premiered her work Concertino for Piano and Orchestra in Berlin under the baton of Herman Stange. The piece was critiqued as “fresh” and “lively” with its “clear and concise form.”24 The Norwegian public excitedly awaited Ørbeck’s return for performances in their homeland. In the year 1939 Helge Smitt, an engineer, brought romance and marriage into Ørbeck’s life. The couple soon settled in Bergen where Ørbeck found fewer and fewer opportunities for a concert career as the war effort put much of Norwegian culture on hold. When the couple welcomed a son into the family, much of Ørbeck’s time was devoted to him and to composition. She wrote a “miniature suite” in the early 1940s as well as an award-winning25 song cycle, Vonir i blømetid (Hope at Blossom Time), a set of seven songs with poems written by H. H. Holm. While the war continued to rage on, Ørbeck began composing what became her biggest triumph: the Symphony in D Major. It is interesting to point out that she created this large-form “masculine” work from within the confines of the domestic sphere. In an article titled “Komponist, Pianist, og Husmor” from a 1948 issue of Dagbladet, we glimpse the inner workings of Ørbeck, who was in very good spirits while juggling the demands of performer, composer, and housewife: Interviewer: “How do you do all of this?” AMØ: “It gets very busy! I have a home to take care of, and a wonderful little four-year-old boy. Here—here is a picture of him! I give concerts in Oslo, travel on tours, and I have to continuously practice and also compose. I don’t have a lot of excess time left.” The interviewer continues on to that evening’s concert, asking what Ørbeck’s inspiration for programming was: AMØ: “I made the program artistically as an answer to being an artist! It is artistically proper (the repertoire)— but not so heavy that it will scare people off!” The two muse over the fact that Ørbeck is now a household name all over Norway thanks to the radio and her concerts. Interviewer: “Just like that, we hear others singing her songs . . . but if we are going to list all of her accomplishments in music it would be too much to 22
Anne-Marie Ørbeck’s Symphony/Songs. The pianist pictured is Ørbeck.
write here in this newspaper. In radio, no listeners can avoid hearing her.” Ørbeck was quite excited that so many, including Soviet Mezzo-Soprano Vera Davydova, were singing her songs. The interview turns to Ørbeck’s activities during the war: AMØ: “Before the war, I was mostly in Berlin. I was also in London on the government stipend.” Interviewer: “After the war—have you been out?” AMØ: “Just a little trip to Copenhagen. I joined the Norsk Music Week there in 1945.” Interviewer: “Do you compose now?” AMØ: “I have written a symphony and am currently working on final edits.”26 How times had changed since the lamenting Agathe Backer-Grøndahl wrote of her self-perceived limited achievement. Although the interim years are a bit of a blur, records show that Ørbeck ended up in Paris studying with Nadia Boulanger in the early 1950s, and received a National Artist’s Scholarship for composition classes with the radical, post-tonal Viennese composer Hanns Jelinek (known for his 12-tone work). Ørbeck kept an open mind through these experiences, but seemingly never adopted the technique into her work. It is most likely because of her experience studying under Jelinek that this quote exists: “When a composer manages to realize her own originality in the music, the work has a possibility to survive.”27 It was important for Ørbeck to trust her instincts and remain true to her own style, rooted in “the echo of Norwegian folk music that she had a close relationship with.”28 As a product of the Grieg and Backer-Grøndahl environment, she preferred to cultivate a “Nordic tone” through her distinct tonal language and chord colors—perhaps best expressed in her songs, hymns, and choral arrangements. Her available Vesterheim
recorded works and songs retain fairly clear classical hallmarks of easily identifiable tonal centers and cadences, lushly romantic melodies, and warm enveloping texture. Thanks to the St. Olaf College Music Library, many of Ørbeck’s songs are available for study and performance. Musicologists and performers should double-down on their efforts to piece together more of Ørbeck’s story and publish a user-friendly song collection with critical evaluation and IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) guides for the various poems, many of which are Danish or Swedish. It would also be a wonderful benefit if the majority of Norwegian newspaper archives became digitized, rather than available only on-site. In order to truly acknowledge and express a holistic picture of Norwegian musical heritage, we will need better tools for teaching and performing such repertoire. In the meantime, we all should become acquainted with a sampling of these women’s works through a recommended listening list. Most recordings are accessible online, so enjoy!
Storlie’s Strong Norwegian Women Playlist Agathe Backer-Grøndahl Fem sanger (Five Songs), op. 23 Mor synger (The Mother Sings, eight songs), op. 52 “Mot kveld” (solo song) Any of her Fantasistykker (piano fantasies) Tre morceaux, op.15 (piano) Andante quasi allegretto for Piano and Orchestra Pauline Hall Verlaine Suite Circus Pictures Nachtwandler (for 6-part mixed choir and orchestra) Fire Tosserier (for voice, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet and French horn) “Smeden og Bageren” (for male choir) “Liebeslied” (solo song) Anne-Marie Ørbeck Vonir in blømetid (set of seven songs) Songs: “Sne,” “En bönn til det blå,” “Staresong” Piano Sonatina No. 2 Pastorale and Allegro for Flute and Strings Symphony in D Major
About the Author Rachel Storlie teaches applied voice at Luther College as an Alumni Guest Lecturer in Music. She is a champion of underperformed repertoire and lesser-known composers. Storlie sang in a chamber music festival last summer in Italy, then at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, and is currently researching Croatian art song composers and their works. She and Luther College music professor Jessica Paul recently performed song selections by Backer-Grøndahl and Ørbeck at the Porter House Museum, and look forward to learning and presenting more in the future. Vol. 16, No. 2 2018
Endnotes
Cecilie Dahm (2004). “Agathe Backer Grøndahl (1847-1907).” Fontes Artis Musicae, vol. 51, no. 2, 2004, 191–198. JSTOR, www. jstor.org/stable/23510550. 2 A response to her piano teacher Halfdan Kjerulf, who had tried to dissuade her from a life outside of the domestic sphere. 3 Marcia J. Citron, “European Composers and Musicians, 1880– 1918.” Women and Music: A History, edited by Karin Pendle, 2nd ed., Indiana University Press, 2001. 175–192. JSTOR, www.jstor. org/stable/j.ctt16gz6w7.11. 4 Dahm (2004),192. 5 Also known as Oslo, the capital city was called Christiania or Kristiania from 1624 through 1925. Kjerulf was a purveyor of Norwegian folk music and poetry, who wrote roughly 40 works for men’s choir and 120 solo songs, and was said to have paved the way for Grieg, et al. in this genre. 6 Dahm (2004), 192. 7 Jill Beatty, Daughters of Norway website, Jan. 17, 2014. https:// www.norwegianamerican.com/heritage/norwegian-americanwomen-of-distinction-nina-hagerup-grieg/ 8 Dahm (2004), 193. 9 Ibid. 10 Dahm (2004), 194. 11 Tusen takk til Ingrid Brekke, a colleague at Luther College in the Nordic Studies department, for her help in translating these mostly Danish newspaper articles, all sourced through https://www.nb.no/ en/the-national-library-of-norway/ 12 Dahm (2004), 195. 13 Dahm (2004), 196. 14 Camilla Hambro, “Agathe Backer Grøndahl (1847–1907): A perfectly plain woman?” The Kapralova Society Journal. Vol. 7 No. 1, 2009. 15 Jens Arbo, Musikerbladet, No. 18, 1917. 16 Johan Backer Lunde trained on piano with his aunt Agathe, as well as Italian Ferrucio Busoni. He wrote over 200 songs, symphonies, and other orchestral works as well as maintaining a busy performance career. 17 Pauline Hall, “Intensiteten, lidenskapen kan ulme under den stille overflaten,” Nytt fra Norsk Musikksamling, December 1997. 18 According to Kvalbein and Mittner, “Hall probably met her future partner, the journalist and feminist Caro Olden, in the journalist milieu surrounding Dagbladet. From the 1940s onwards the two women lived together, becoming one of the first couples in Norway to live in an openly homosexual relationship.” 19 Astrid Kvalbein, Musikalsk modernisering : Pauline Hall (18901969) som komponist, teatermenneske og Ny Musikk-leiar. Norges musikkhøgskole, 2013. 20 Astrid Kvalbein and Lilli Mittner. “Pauline Hall.” Musik und Gender im Internet (MUGI), 2014. mugi.hfmt-hamburg.de 21 Ibid. 22 “Pauline Hall er død.” Nordisk Tidende. Feb. 6, 1969. 23 Kathryn Mishell. Into the Light Radio: The Music of Women Composers. “Musical Poems,” Program 327, 2009, http://www. intothelightradio.org/programs2009.html. 24 Cecilie Dahm (February 13, 2009). Anne Marie Ørbeck. In Norwegian biographical lexicon. Retrieved November 12, 2018 from https://nbl.snl.no/Anne-Marie_%C3%98rbeck. 25 This song cycle was premiered at the 1942 Jubilee Contest of the Norwegian Composers Association. 26 “Komponist, Pianist, og Husmor,” Dagbladet. February 3, 1948. 27 http://www.listento.no/mic.nsf/doc/art2002100715132269544060 28 Cecilie Dahm, (February 13, 2009). 1
23