Elling Catharinus, *13 September 1858 Christiania (present-day Oslo), †8 January 1942 Oslo, a Norwegian composer, collector of folk music, conductor and organist, who was a philologist by training. He studied music in Leipzig from 1877 to 1878 and in Berlin from 1886 to 1889. In 1896 he returned to Christiania, where he became active in many areas of musical life. He was a teacher of theory at the conservatoire, conductor of a choral society, music critic for the newspaper “Morgenpost”, and, from 1909 to 1926, organist at Gamlebyenskyrke. His greatest contribution lay in the field of folklore collection: between 1898 and 1919, he collected around 1,400 Norwegian folk melodies, a significant number of which he later published in his own arrangements. He also wrote a number of works on Norwegian musical folklore. He composed in almost every musical genre: symphonies, chamber music, opera, solo and choral vocal music, and piano music. Stylistically, these works represent the classical-romantic tradition.
