Musicologist and in-house researcher

Per Dahl (b. 1952) is the researcher-in-house at the Norwegian Institute of Recorded Sound. He is researching and writing a book on the development of interpretation in the 20th Century based on recordings of Grieg's song Jeg elsker dig / Ich liebe dich / I love thee.

Per Dahl is Associate Professor in Music History at the University of Stavanger. While studying at the University of Trondheim (music, philosophy and psychology) he also performed as a professional flutist. He moved to Stavanger in 1979 and became associate professor at the Conservatory of Music at the Stavanger University College (now the Department of Music and Dance at the University of Stavanger) in 1988. In addition to his teaching, he was involved in the establishing of the Norwegian Institute of Recorded Sound in 1984 and is still our professional musicologist.

Per Dahl was editor of the preservation plan for Norwegian sound recordings, published in 1997 (Verneplan for norske lydfestinger). In 2000-2003 he was Dean of the Stavanger University College, and played an active part in the preparations for it achieving full university status.

He has written many artist bigraphies to CD-releases of historical recordings, and was editor of all the CD-booklets for the 5-boxed antology of Kirsten Flagstad's recordings. He also wrote an article for the third box-set, called The Voice of a Century.

Per Dahl presented his Doctoral Thesis "Jeg elsker dig! Lytterens argument" (I Love You! The Listener's Argument) at the University of Stavanger on November 10 2006. An English summary of the thesis is available here.