Valborg Aulin

Aulin was born in Gävle, Sweden, in 1860. Both of her parents, Lars Axel Alfred and Edla Aulin née Holmberg, were musical.[4] Her mother, Edla Aulin had hoped for a career as a singer, but bad health had stopped her career. Aulin's father was a classics scholar, holding a doctorate in Greek, on the poet Callimachus.[3] He also held a position at a Stockholm secondary school, where he taught classical languages.[3] While he was a student at Uppsala University, Aulin's father developed an understanding and appreciation of chamber music, eventually becoming a keen amateur violinist, eventually leading to a position in the Mazer String Quartet Society, playing viola and violin.[3]

Aulin's musical career began when she started taking piano lessons from her grandmother and by age 12 was taking lessons from Hilda Thegerström.[3] Aulin eventually came to the notice of Albert Rubenson, the then current director of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.[4] An enrolment at the academy followed when Aulin was 17, to study composition with Rubenson.[3] Aulin was also tutored at the Royal College of Music, Stockholm by Herman Behrens and Ludvig Norman.[3] Norman was an important supporter of Aulin for most of her life and when Norman died in 1885, she composed the Pie Jesu Domine for choir and orchestra.[1] In 1880, Aulin held her first public performance at Söderköping, and went on tour with her brother Tor Aulin to Norrland.[3] Aulin studied piano and composition for five years before winning a Jenny Lind Mendelssohn Travelling Fellowship to attend piano tutorials abroad.[4] In 1886, Aulin travelled to Copenhagen to study under Niels Wilhelm Gade for a year and in 1887, travelled to Paris for three years to receive composition lessons from female pianist E. Bourgain as well as Jules Massenet, Ernest Guiraud and Benjamin Godard.[3] In Paris, Aulin created two works, Tableaux Parisiens for orchestra and Procul este for solo voice, choir and string orchestra.[1]

Upon returning to Sweden, Aulin began a career as a teacher, pianist and composer.[4] In 1890, she joined the women's association Nya Idun.[5] As a teacher, she supplemented her income by teaching piano, counterpoint, composition and harmony.[3] At the same time Aulin was composing and between 1887 and 1901 she gave recitals of her compositions.[3] As a pianist she often played with her brother, Tor Aulin, and others to form the Aulin Quartet, playing favourites like Camille Saint-Saëns' Piano Quartet and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's G Minor quartet.[3]

Besides many lieder and pieces for solo piano, her compositions included two string quartets (in F major and in E minor) and organ music.

At the age of 43, Aulin decided to move from the capital, where she grew up, to Örebro, a city some 125 miles to the west.[4] There Aulin began working as a teacher, organist, pianist and arranging concerts although she ceased composing.[4] The reasons for her departure have never been determined, although the move has been viewed with much speculation. The American Scholar posits that she possibly became tired of the constant challenges she faced regarding the musical culture in Stockholm, particularly since Aulin was female, and also that she had certain difficulties with her mother.[4] The Swedish Musical Heritage posits the same reasons.[1] Other reasons suggested by The Swedish Art Music Society include the fact that the Aulin Quartet gradually ceased to perform as well as the early death of the composer Ludvig Norman along with other members of her support structure. This, combined with a lack of friends, may have been another reason.[3]

Either way, Aulin's work was performed less and less, and would be forgotten.[4] It was only in 1991 that Quartet No. 2 was given its next performance.[4]

Aulin's work consists of two types of work, piano compositions and compositions for voice and piano, that both provide works for less experienced musicians and professional musicians.[1] This is evidenced by dedications to singers such as the Swedish opera singer Dina Edling and music teacher Hilda Thegerström.[1]

With the exception of Grande sonate sérieuse pour le piano [F minor], Sonata for piano opus 14, the piano compositions have a single movement.[1] These compositions are mood pieces in which the title already defines the pieces character.[1] The prominence of single movement works is puzzling as Aulin was an accomplished pianist and was more than capable of playing longer compositions. Swedish Musical Heritage has posited that the possible reason was that Aulin wanted more of her work published as smaller works selling better than larger works.[1]

Aulin's compositions for solo voice and piano tend to be artistic songs rather than romances.[1] Most of the text that is attached to the compositions were poems written by Karl Alfred Melin.[1] It is unknown whether Melin was a poet as he is entirely unknown. The other pieces of text were principally written by the composer Ludvig Norman. Other people of interest were the Swedish poet Carl David af Wirsén and the Finnish-Swedish lyricist and poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg.[1]

The work with the last effects are the two string quartets. Aulin wrote the last quartet when she was 29 years old and it has often puzzled musical historians and biographers of Aulin's life why she did not return to writing quartets in later life.[1]

• Laura Valborg Aulin at Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon

• Free scores by Valborg Aulin at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)