Harald Sæverud was born in Bergen and received his basic music education at the local conservatory where his teacher was the Leipzig-educated composer Borghild Holmsen.

It revealed an extraordinary talent and gained him a scholarship for further studies at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik, where Friedrich Koch was his teacher for two years.

The performance was conducted by his friend Ludwig Mowinckel, who had hired the orchestra to present a concert dedicated to modern Norwegian music.

His earliest compositions are coloured by a late Romantic musical style, but later he developed a personal idiom, often based on classical forms inspired by composers like Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

How he has utilized this is commented on by musicologist Lorentz Reitan: "His symphonies, for example, are studies in musical form: Thematic/motive development in accordance with the material's own rules and logic.

In the 1930s Harald Sæverud and his American-born wife Marie Hvoslef built a magnificent mansion on the outskirts of Bergen.

In contrast to these strong compositions he also shaped a number of lyric piano pieces inspired by nature and Norwegian folk music (he never borrowed directly from folk music) published in collections called Tunes and Dances from Siljustøl and Easy Pieces for Piano.

During the two last decades of his long life the orchestra composer suddenly developed an interest in chamber music, and produced, among other works, three string quartets and two woodwind quintets.

Sæverud's central place in Norwegian and European music has resulted in a number of honorary awards: He received the State Guaranteed Income for Artists from 1955 until his death.