After piano studies with Johan Backer Lunde (1908-10), studies in theory and composition with Catharinus Elling (1910-12) and further studies in Paris and Dresden (1912-14) she started a career as a journalist and an exceptional artist – being a female composer and an advocate of modern music. During the next decades she became one of the most important figures for the musical Avant-garde in Norway, representing her country in the International Society for Contemporary Music.
Her role within the resistance movement is still rather unclear. In 1942 she lost her position as music critic for the newspaper Dagbladet (which she had held since 1934 and got it back in 1945). Her life partner Caro Olden, theater critic and cultural journalist, was arrested 12 May 1943, sent to KZ Grini and released one year later on 15 May 1944.
Immediately after the liberation Pauline Hall used newspaper articles to document Nazi-collaboration of musicians.
