AULIN, Laura Valborg

  Valborg Aulin was born on 9 January 1860 in Gävle, and died on 13 March 1928. After studying at the Swedish Royal Academy of Music (1877–82), where she was encouraged in composition by Ludvig Norman and Albert Rubenson, she was awarded a Jenny Lind grant (1885), which enabled her to study composition for a short time with Gade in Copenhagen and then to spend two years in Paris studying with Massenet and Godard.

She had a significant career as a composer in her hometown of Stockholm, which was interrupted in 1903 when she moved to Örebro to work as a music teacher. During her active years as a composer, she had numerous works published and performed. With a good education and heavily influenced by her musical upbringing, she wrote music that was much appreciated during her lifetime: mostly works for home and the salon, which, although influenced by French music, still belongs within the Scandinavian tradition. Her works show harmonic refinement and a powerful temperament, while her tone poems for piano are written in a more lyrical style.