Bull, Ole

Bull, Ole (Bornemann)

(born Feb. 5, 1810, Bergen, Nor.—died Aug. 17, 1880, Lysøen, near Bergen) Norwegian violinist. After training in his native Bergen, he freelanced in Christiania (now Oslo) in 1828–31. His Paris concerts, which featured Norwegian songs played on a folk violin, won much attention, and he toured Europe and the U.S. for two decades. A longtime nationalist, he was brought back home by the revolution of 1848. He helped found the Norwegian Theatre in Bergen, and in 1852–53 he established the socialist colony Oleona in Pennsylvania; debts from the failed experiment kept him touring the rest of his life. Much of the music he composed is lost.