Hjalmar Borgstrøm (23 March 1864 – 5 July 1925) was a Norwegian composer and music critic who played a prominent role in the musical life of his country in the first quarter of the 20th century. His father, Carl Christian Jensen, was a civil servant and the family were keen amateur musicians. Borgstrøm showed an early aptitude for music and by the age of fifteen was a talented violinist. After studying composition and music theory in Oslo with Johan Svendsen and Ludvig Mathias Lindeman, he went to the Leipzig Conservatory in Germany for two years. On his return to Norway in 1889, he worked as a music critic for several newspapers and successfully premiered his cantata, Hvæm er du med de tusene navne (Who are you with a thousand names). However, in 1890, he left Norway and was to live for the next thirteen years in Leipzig and Berlin, where he became a friend of the Italian composer and pianist Ferruccio Busoni whose musical philosophy he shared.

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