Halfdan Kjerulf

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Halfdan Kjerulf (15 September 1815, Christiania (now Oslo) — 11 August 1868, Grefsen) was a Norwegian composer.

He was the son of a high government official. His early education was at Christiania University, for a legal career, but his studies ended in 1839 as a result of illness, and the next year he spent some time in Paris. Soon after his return his father and two siblings died and he took a job as editor at one of Oslo's main newspapers, Den Constitutionelle (1836-1847), where he worked until 1845.

He started his career as a music teacher and composer of songs before ever having seriously studied music at all, and not for ten years did he attract any particular notice. In 1848 he studied with Carl Arnold, and after studying with Niels Gade in Copenhagen, the Norwegian Government paid for a year's instruction for him at Leipzig in 1850, where he was taught by Ernst Friedrich Richter. For many years after his return to Norway Kjerulf tried in vain to establish regular classical concerts, while he himself was working with Bjørnson and other writers at the composition of lyrical songs. He obtained some official recognition during the 1860s. His fame rests almost entirely on his beautiful and manly national partsongs and solos; but his pianoforte music is equally charming, and it was recorded in its entirety in 2001 by Einar Steen-Nøkleberg.