Introduction

Biography

Viggo was the son of John Chris­tian Kal­hauge, or­gan­ist at the Var­tov Church in Co­pen­ha­gen. His grand­fa­ther, Niels Kal­hau­ge, played the or­gan at the Fred­er­iks­kirk­en in Skåde Sogn, and the Ho­ly Spir­it Church in Co­pen­ha­gen.

Viggo began to com­pose as a boy, and st­udied un­der Pe­ter Heise and Jo­hann Chris­tian Ge­bau­er. One of his hymns, Uro­li­ge hjer­te, writ­ten at age 16, was still in the Dan­ish psal­ter more than a cen­tu­ry af­ter his death.

In 1868, he re­ceived a grant from the Anc­ker Le­ga­cy and tra­veled around Eu­rope to stu­dy mu­sic.

In 1872, Kal­hauge suc­ceed­ed his fa­ther as or­gan­ist at Var­tov Church, a post he held un­til his death.

Works

In 1868, Viggo wrote an op­er­et­ta, Zouav­ens Hjem­komst, which was re­cord­ed at the Ca­si­no The­ater. Lat­er, he pro­duced two oth­er stage works in the same genre, On War­fod (1880) and Man­till­en (1889).

His oth­er works in­clude ov­er­tures, chants, li­bret­tos based on Ro­bert Burns and Chris­tian Ri­chardt, pi­ano piec­es and a string quar­tet.

In 1876, Kal­hauge pub­lished a col­lect­ion of 4-voice ar­range­ments of tunes from Grund­tvig’s Kirke­sal­me­bog. Un­til 1907 it ap­peared in ma­ny edi­tions. Kal­hauge al­so ed­it­ed se­ver­al song books for child­ren and ad­ults.