Ina Lange

Ina Forstén was born into an upper-class family in Helsinki. Her father, Johan August Forstén, was a high-ranking civil servant, and due her mother Augusta Wilhelmina (née Danielson) she was cousin to the Senator and Professor, Valtioneuvos Johan Richard Danielson-Kalmari.[2] [5] She was second cousin on father’s side to professor G. V. Forsten. [6]

She was privately educated, first at home by a governess, followed by studies at the Höhere Töchterschule (lit. 'Higher Daughter School') in Berlin.[2]

She subsequently went on to study music, first in Berlin, and later at the Moscow Conservatory under the likes of Nikolai Rubinstein and Tchaikovsky.[2][7]

While living in Stockholm in the 1870s, Forstén is known to have been friends with the Finnish noblewoman and actress Siri von Essen and her Swedish writer husband August Strindberg, in many of whose works she appeared.[2][1]

In 1876, she married the opera singer Algot Lange.[1] The couple had three sons, the youngest of whom, Åke Mortimer (b. 1884), later took his father's name, and became known as the explorer and writer Algot Lange.[1]

The Langes lived at first in Helsinki, then Stockholm, before moving in the mid-1880s to Copenhagen. There she became acquainted with Maria Feodorovna (then Princess Dagmar of Denmark) and Crown Prince Frederick.[2][1] She is known later to have used her friendship with the former to pass on messages between Finnish politicians Danielson-Kalmari and Yrjö Sakari Yrjö-Koskinen and the Russian Imperial Court, to advocate for constitutional reforms in Finland.[2][4]

The Langes' marriage ended in divorce in 1898.[2] She continued living in Copenhagen until 1913, when she moved to Malmö in Sweden.[4]

For virtually her entire career, Lange lived and worked outside of Finland, and consequently she is relatively little-known in Finland, unlike in Sweden and Denmark where she is considered a notable musician, music pedagogue and writer.[2][3]