Saeterjentens Sondag (score & parts) - WW5

Saeterjentens Sondag
for woodwind quintet: flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon
by Ole Bornemann Bull (1810-1880) - Norwegian composer

ABOUT THE MUSIC
The Shepherd Girl's Sunday is one of Bull's most popular pieces, arranged for wind quintet by Robert Broemel. It seems that on Sunday mornings someone was needed to tend the sheep and cows up on the mountain tops wile church services were being help in the valleys. A selected young lady would get all dressed up for church but have to go up with her Bible and lessons and stay during church to watch over the herds. And just in case any young men might sneak up to visit her, some younger children were often sent up there with her as chaperones. The young lady was thus "all dressed up and no place to go". 

ABOUT THE COMPOSER

Ole Bornemann Bull was born in Bergen, Norway.  He was the eldest of ten children of Johan Storm Bull (1787–1838) and Anna Dorothea Borse Geelmuyden (1789–1875).  His father wanted him to become a minister, but he desired a musical career.  At the age of four or five, he could play all  the songs he had heard his mother play on the violin.  At nine, he played first violin in the orchestra of Bergen's theatre and was a soloist with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra.  At eighteen, he was sent to the University of Christiania but failed his examinations. He joined the Musical Lyceum, a musical society, and after its director took ill, became the director of Musical Lyceum and the Theater Orchestra in 1828.

After living for a while in Germany, where he pretended to study law, he went to Paris but fared badly.   He was eventually successful in becoming a high-level virtuoso, giving thousands of concerts and in turn, making a sizeable fortune. He is believed to have composed more than 70 works, but only about 10 are known today. Best known is Sæterjentens søndag (The dairymaid's Sunday). He also was a clever luthier, after studies in Paris with Vuillaume. He collected many beautiful violins and played a Guarneri del Gesù. The violin, a gift of his widow to Bull's birthplace, is now in the Bergen Vestlandske Kustindustrimuseum.  

In the summer of 1858, Bull met the 15-year-old Edvard Grieg and became a friend of the Grieg family, since Ole Bull's brother was married to the sister of Grieg's mother. Bull noticed Edvard's talent and persuaded his parents to send him to further develop his talents at the Leipzig Conservatory.  Bull was also a friend of Franz Liszt and played with him on several occasions.

Bull visited the United States several times and was met with great success. In 1852, he obtained a large tract of land in Pennsylvania and founded a colony, which was called New Norway but which is commonly referred to as Ole Bull Colony. 

In 1836 Bull married Alexandrine Félicie Villeminot. They had six children, only two of whom survived him. Alexandrine died in 1862.  In 1868 Bull met Sara Chapman Thorp (1850–1911)  after a concert in Madison, Wisconsin.   On a return visit in 1870 (and despite their age difference; he was 60, she was 20), Bull began a courtship, and the couple was secretly married in Norway in June 1870, with a formal wedding in Madison later that year. They had one daughter, Olea (1871–1913).

Ole Bull bought the island of Lysøen in Os, south of Bergen, in 1872. He hired architect Conrad Fredrik von der Lippe to design a residence on the island. Bull died from cancer in his home on Lysøen on 17 August 1880. He had held his last concert in Chicago the same year, despite his illness. A testament to his fame was his funeral procession, perhaps the most spectacular in Norway's history. The ship transporting his body was guided by 15 steamers and a large number of smaller vessels.