Hjalmar Rabe and Edvard Grieg

On July 1, 1895, Edvard Grieg — by then revered as a national hero in Norway as well as one of the great romantic-era composers — wrote a letter of recommendation for his friend, colleague and fellow native of Bergen, Hjalmar Rabe. 

“Mr. Hjalmar Rabe is an excellent bassoonist, musical and energetic. On several occasions, people in his home have also learned to appreciate him as a skilled violinist both in quartets and solo playing. I therefore feel confident that he will find in America the recognition he deserves. Bergen, 1 July 1895. Edvard Grieg” (English translation from Danish courtesy of Leif Ove Andsnes).

Hjalmar Rabe was born on January 30, 1872. He initially studied in Leipzig, despite “overcoming parental objections to having another musician in the family,” according to a profile in the Chicago Daily News in 1938 by Raymond H. Carroll. His father operated a concert bureau and music store in Bergen, where young Rabe was able to meet local and visiting artists, including Grieg, soprano Christina Nilsson (who sang the role of Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust for the inauguration of the Metropolitan Opera House) and violinist, conductor and composer Johan Halvorsen.

“Chamber music in his home was considered an indispensable part of the day,” Carroll continued. “His father, an able musician, did not want his son to become one, so Rabe was sent to business college where he reluctantly learned to keep a set of books. The urge to make music proved too strong and a family conference was called, the results of which saw the young aspirant on his way to Germany for study.”

After three years in Leipzig studying both the violin and bassoon, Rabe returned to Bergen. In 1894 he sailed to the United States and landed his first job in Milwaukee as a member of the Christian Bach Orchestra, bringing him, “$1.30 per concert, with free beer as an added consideration.”

In 1895 — at the invitation of founder and first music director Theodore Thomas — Rabe joined the Chicago Orchestra as a member of the violin section. (His initial salary was $30.00 per week, and was “enormous pay in those days,” according to Rabe.) The following season, his name also appeared on the roster in the bassoon section. By 1917, he was listed exclusively in the bassoons, where he later served as that section’s principal for the 1918–19 season as well as principal contrabassoon during 1944–45. 

Rabe was the second musician in the Orchestra to reach 50 years of service, right behind his colleague and close friend Franz Esser (1868–1950), who had joined the Orchestra’s violin section at the beginning of the second season in 1892. Esser later served as principal viola from 1898 until 1926 and principal second violin from 1926 until 1939. Rabe and Esser both retired in 1945.

Rabe and his wife Dagny briefly met in Norway shortly before she immigrated to the United States in 1893. They reunited in Chicago the following year and were married in 1895. On Christmas Eve 1955, the couple celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary, and the occasion drew recognition from Illinois Secretary of State Charles F. Carpentier, Illinois Governor William G. Stratton and U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. 

In his retirement, Rabe continued to practice both the violin and bassoon daily. "I’m using every minute of every day for something. Some old people don’t know what to do with themselves. I always have something to do." Hjalmar Rabe died on August 2, 1958, at the age of 86. He was survived by his beloved wife, two daughters and four sons.

In October 1988, Rabe’s daughter Dagny Musaus (1911–1994) was interviewed for the CSO’s Oral History Project. She remembered, “My father was Norwegian and he studied in Germany, and Edvard Grieg recommended him to come to the United States. They were both born in Bergen, Norway, and they became very close friends.” Musaus frequently accompanied her father to rehearsals and concerts, both at Orchestra Hall and Ravinia Park, and she added that her father admired Theodore Thomas, that he was, “marvelous, absolutely marvelous,” and Frederick Stock, “was a fabulous musician, just wonderful.”

Most recently, Rabe’s granddaughter Lisbet (née Musaus) Przybylski made a generous donation of materials to the CSO Association, including the letter from Grieg and an original 1897 framed portrait of the Orchestra. Facilitated by Rabe’s great-granddaughter Dawn McAllister, the donation establishes the Hjalmar Rabe Collection in the Rosenthal Archives. 

This article also appears here.