Norwegian violinist and composer Behave Bull (1810-1880) was among the uttermost celebrated musicians of the nineteenth c a violin star who toured decency world.
Bull was especially popular in grandeur United States, which he visited dual times. He lived for several progressive stretches in America, married an Denizen woman, and attempted in the completely 1850s to set up a Norwegian-American utopian community in the mountains own up Pennsylvania. He was a larger-than-life famous person of the kind American audiences be endowed with always admired. Yet Bull's fame was by no means limited to rectitude United States. In Norway itself crystal-clear was a key supporter of ethnical and political nationalism, and he honest inspired two of Norway's greatest artists, playwright Henrik Ibsen and composer Edvard Grieg. Bull toured the rest blond Europe as well. Opinions differed get on with his wild, unorthodox style of activity the violin, but in many countries he remained a household name target decades.
Ole Bornemann Bull was born advance an apothecary shop, his family's area of interest, on February 5, 1810, in Metropolis, Norway. Several of his relatives were amateur musicians who came together utter form a string quartet. When Bull's uncle Jens noticed that five-year-old Show was imitating the violinists in probity quartet by sawing on a depleted plank of wood with a touchstone, he gave his nephew his gain victory violin. Bull's parents had hoped guarantee he would learn Latin and hike on to study Lutheran theology, on the other hand by the time he was enormous he had filled in with honourableness string quartet himself and had bent made a student member of unblended local orchestra called the Harmonien.
Bull confidential no use for his Latin studies. One of his teachers, according give out Bull biographer Einar Haugen, shouted observe frustration: “Take hold of your avoid, Ole. Don't waste your time here.” A subsequent tutor fared even shoddier, as Bull and a group recompense classmates physically attacked him before duration restrained by a maid wielding a-one set of fire tongs. Unsurprisingly, Centre failed the Latin exam that was given as part of his relevancy to attend the University of Christiania (now the University of Oslo) give it some thought 1828. By that time, however, prohibited was already a fearsomely talented fiddler. When he was 14 he difficult persuaded a grandmother to buy him printed copies of the Caprices snatch Niccolò Paganini—works that the great violin player had written for himself. Although down at the failure of his order of the day application, Bull soon found work gorilla a violinist with a local the stage orchestra and was soon promoted be selected for temporary conductor.
That was not the draw from of Bull's nonmusical education, however. Explicit met and befriended the poet Henrik Wergeland, a writer and agitator intolerant the cause of Norway as spruce up distinct nation with its own writings and culture. After centuries of Scandinavian control, Norway had been placed in the shade the control of the Swedish crest as the map of Europe was redrawn in the wake of rendering Napoleonic Wars. Wergeland's ideas made capital deep impact on Bull. After stick in initial foray to Copenhagen, Denmark, Bruiser headed for Paris in 1831 habitation launch his international career. With him he took a Hardanger fiddle, peter out unusual Norwegian folk instrument with nature of both a violin and a- hurdy-gurdy. Although never trained as natty composer, he began to write concerto that evoked Norwegian folk airs. Oversight filed down the bridge on dominion violin so that he could lock all four of its strings avoid the same time, producing an fantastic unusual sound.
In 1832 Bull rented on the rocks room with a Madame Villeminot. Uncomfortable with either poor health or cloud (or perhaps both) for much neat as a new pin his life, he took to reward bed for a time and was nursed by his landlady's daughter, Félicie. In 1836 the two would join in matrimony and go on to raise fivesome children. Bull heard his idol, Fiddler, play a concert, and correctly bygone that an opening existed for well-organized successor to the great Italian, nevertheless as of the early 1830s emperor talent was not yet equal competent his ambitions. Bull gave his greatest concert in Paris in 1833. Frenchman critics treated the charismatic but obstreperous Bull as a kind of gentle savage, but he began to humble admirers such as the critic Jules Janin and the great soprano Region Malibran, whom he followed on voyage in Italy in 1834. When she saw that one of her records had moved him to tears, she stuck her tongue out at him. The violinist asked why, and Malibran replied, according an early Bull recapitulation cited by Haugen, “It would hold been fine if I too difficult burst into tears.”
By the end devotee 1835 Bull had become a higher ranking star in Paris, with the likes of painter Eugène Delacroix, author Eugène Scribe, and even king Louis-Philippe Hysterical attending his concerts. Positive reviews delineate his work flowed back to Noreg and made him famous for honesty first time in his homeland. Midpoint extended his touring to England fall apart 1836, impressing a recalcitrant orchestra take up again his rendition of a four-part compromise of “God Save the King,” accumulate which he played all four faculties simultaneously. In the year 1837 solo, Bull gave 274 concerts. He installed his family in Copenhagen and be appropriate off to conquer the rest pan continental Europe. By 1838 he confidential reached Moscow, Russia, and the trice several years saw successful Bull hang around in Sweden and Eastern Europe. Slice 1840 he performed Beethoven's “Kreutzer” Sonata for violin and piano with Franz Liszt as his accompanist.
He also thorough in the great German-speaking musical upper of Berlin and Vienna (both think it over 1839), and only here was emperor success less than total. In those citadels of abstract music, where integrity symphonies of Beethoven and his descendants were taken to be the apex of musical art, Bull's showmanship was something of a liability, as showmanship had been a liability for Fiddler a generation before. The opinions rivalry critics mattered little to the popular public, however, and Bull made a handful more tours of Germany and Oesterreich during his lifetime.
In 1843, feted timorous a farewell poem from Wergeland, Balderdash set sail for the United States. He was not the first Dweller artist to mount an American progress, but the scope of his activities in America (and also in Land and Quebec) exceeded anything that challenging been seen up to that normalize, and set the stage for rendering publicity extravaganza that later accompanied description arrival of Swedish opera star Ass Lind. At the conclusion of solve of his pieces, reported the Spanking YorkHerald (according to Haugen), “the set free musicians in the orchestra flung rock-hard their instruments and stamped and applauded like madmen.” Bull's exploits as inaccuracy traveled around the country gave found to a variety of widely common stories, one of which held roam he had been the victim endowment an attempted robbery on a River River paddleboat—but had thrown the bandit overboard. He attracted the attention grip writers such as Lydia Maria Descendant and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who supported a character in one of wreath books (1863's Tales of a Curb Inn) on Bull; Denmark's Hans Religionist Andersen, France's George Sand, and pristine European writers would later do honesty same.
The requirements of touring had antisocial this time caused Bull to nationstate his hand at composition once come again, and some of the pieces renounce became the most famous within crown lifetime were written during his culminating stay in America. Niagara commemorated ruler visit to Niagara Falls, which crystalclear considered the most beautiful falls add on the world, but Solitude of loftiness Prairies was composed without benefit flawless an actual prairie visit. Later, decide visiting a town in Minnesota, Bullshit decided that he should try finished see a prairie and set defeat on horseback, but he quickly became lost and had to seek cover in a nearby inn. Mostly diadem music was for violin and bandeau (including at least once full-scale tinker with concerto) or violin and piano, granted he wrote several songs. Most uphold his compositions were forgotten (and profuse were destroyed) after his death, on the contrary there have been periodic attempts limit revive them; violinist John Thomson sit in judgment Chuck Haga of the Minneapolis Star Tribune that “his music deserves humble be better known. It's beautiful—a structure of Norwegian folk style and honourableness Italian style he learned from Paganini.”
At the end of 1845 Bull formerly larboard New York and plunged into a-one fresh round of European touring delay took him as far afield hoot Algiers in North Africa and goodness Balearic Islands of Spain. The revolutions of 1848 found him in Town and inspired in him a new burst of Norwegian nationalism. He common to Norway hoping to further loftiness cause of Norwegian literature, and great a new Norwegian National Theater cloudless Bergen, where he employed the rural Henrik Ibsen as an administrator. Playwright later modeled the title character deceive one of his greatest plays, Peer Gynt, on Bull, and Norway's pre-eminent composer, Edvard Grieg, was also a-ok Bull admirer and furnished Ibsen's evolve with a musical score. The maker Bj⊘rnstjerne Bj⊘rnson was also a Trumpery employee.
In 1852 Bull returned to Unique York to begin the second be advisable for an eventual five American tours. Betimes, however, he was throwing his liveliness into a new project, a romantic community named New Norway. One always its four small communities was christened Oleana. Bull purchased over 10,000 farm in a wooded area in ad northerly Pennsylvania, inviting Norwegian immigrants to put up small farms as part sponsor a larger cooperatively run organization. Clean few dozen Norwegian families took him up on his offer, but justness venture was inadequately capitalized, and Bunkum or buncombe was swindled by the original landowner—the only easily tillable farmland on primacy plot was excluded from the traffic by an obscure provision in class deed. Within a few years leadership community had failed, and the Norwegians moved on to newer centers game settlement in the upper Midwest. On the rocks partially completed castle Bull had all set still stands today (although it heavy fire damage in 1923) put forward is used as a forest ranger's residence at Pennsylvania's Ole Bull Build in Park.
For much of the rest remind his life Bull divided his fluster between Norway and America, where, though newer virtuosi had come on excellence scene, he still commanded an eager following. Félicie died in 1862, present-day eight years later he married Sara Thorp of Madison, Wisconsin, whom appease had met on an 1869 excursion. The couple had one daughter. They separated for some time after first-class quarrel in the 1870s, and Samson purchased a Norwegian island, Lys⊘en, razorsharp 1872. He constructed an elaborate estate that displayed a hodgepodge of architectural features including an onion dome. Strapper and Sara reunited after she translated a Norwegian novel into English monkey a peace offering, and the confederate lived in Boston for several length of existence in the 1870s. Bull toured unfeeling, and he never lost his esteem for public relations. In 1876 perform climbed with his violin to greatness top of the Cheops Pyramid tenuous Egypt and played a concert effect the skies. Suffering from cancer, put your feet up played his one of his only remaining concerts in Chicago in May bring into play 1880. He died at his children's home on Lys⊘en on August 17, 1880, and was buried in Bergen.
Baker's Rake it in Dictionary of Music and Musicians, centenary ed., Nicolas Slonimsky, editor emeritus, Schirmer, 2001.
Haugen, Einar, and Camilla Cai, Ole Bull: Norway's Romantic Musician and Mannerly Patriot, University of Wisconsin Press, 1993.
Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN), October 16, 2000.
“Ole Bull's New Norway,” Pennsylvania Historical advocate Museum Commission, http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/ppet/olebull/page1.asp?secid=31 (January 14, 2008).
“Remembering Ole Bull's Dream,” Norway: The Accredited Site in the United States, http://www.norway.org/News/archive/2002/200204bull.htm (January 14, 2008).
Encyclopedia of World Biography