Bull Ole Bornemann, *5 February 1810 Bergen, †17 August 1880 Lysø (near Bergen), Norwegian violinist and composer. He learned to play the violin only in his childhood under J.H. Paulsen, a pupil of G.B. Viotti, and C.F. Lundholm, a pupil of P. Baillot; later, he perfected his skills independently; he began performing in public at the age of nine. In 1831, he left for Paris, where, after hearing Paganini, he worked on mastering his playing technique. In 1832, he gave his first concert in Paris and, from then on, he constantly toured Europe and the USA. In 1838, he became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. In 1850, he founded the first Norwegian national theatre in Bergen and for less than a year was its director and orchestra conductor. He spent the last dozen or so years of his life mostly in the United States.
Bull was one of the most famous violinists of the 19th century. His playing was compared to that of Paganini, but he developed his own performance style. Modelling himself on Norwegian folk violins, known as hardingfeles, he used a flat bridge, which enabled him to play all four strings. He also used a much longer and heavier bow, which allowed him to achieve new technical effects. Bull composed virtuoso violin pieces, which he performed himself. He was one of the first Norwegian composers to use folklore in his compositions. He consciously sought to create Norwegian national music and awakened an interest in native folklore among younger Norwegian composers: H. Kjerulf, R. Nordraak and E. Grieg. He played an important role in promoting Norwegian culture around the world.
Among Bull’s surviving compositions, the following are worth mentioning: Violin Concerto in E minor (1841), Fantasy and Variations on a Theme by Bellini (published in Hamburg in 1843) and Recitativo e Adagio amoroso con Polacca guerriera (dedicated to the memory of the November Uprising), which he completed in 1835 and performed in Rome. He was a great friend of Poland and the Polish people, and dedicated his Violin Concerto in A major, composed in 1834, to Prince Józef Poniatowski (the nephew of the Polish national hero). In 1841 and 1867, he gave concerts in Warsaw, playing, among others, Polacca guerriera, and on 17 May 1863, in Christiania (now Oslo), he took part in a gala evening in honour of the January Uprising and Prince Adam Czartoryski, who had come to Norway especially for the occasion.
Literature: S.C. Bull Ole Bull. A memoir, Boston 1883, London 1886; A. Moser Geschichte des Violinspiels, Berlin 1923; A. Bjørndal Ole Bull og norsk folksmusik, Bergen 1940; M. Smith The Life of Ole Bull, New York 1943, H. Headland Ole Bull, Rock Islands 1949; O. Linge Ole Bull, Oslo 1953, M. Schulerud Ole Bull, Oslo 1960; I. Jampolsky Ule Bull, “Sovyetskaya Muzyka” XXIV, 1960 No. 5, S. Bull Ole Bull. A Memoir, New York 1981; J. Bull Ole Bull’s Activities in the United States between 1843 and 1880, Smithtown 1982; E.I. Haugen Ole Bull. Norway’s Romantic Musician and Cosmopolitan Patriot, transl. C. Cai, Madison (Wisconsin) 1993.
