Friday 6th of November 2026 5 pm
Take That, Little Paul!
Program
Elfrida Andrée (1841–1929)
Fuga con spirito in E-flat major
Four Organ Compositions
i. Improvisation on a Hymn Tune
ii. Prelude to Chorale No. 99
iii. Cantilena
iv. Melody
Symphonische Dichtung
Organ Symphony No. 1 in B minor
i. Moderato
ii. Fugetta
iii. Andante cantabile
iv. Finale: Allegro giusto e maestoso
Sara Michelin, Jan H Börjesson and Johan Hammarström, organ
Programme Notes
At the age of sixteen, she sits alone in the organ gallery of St James’s Church. Below, representatives of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music have gathered to hear her examination performance. She herself seems above all absorbed in the joy of having the great instrument at her command. In a letter home to her parents, she describes how she “controlled the great organ with my hands and feet”, adding: “I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed it, and I hope I may have that pleasure many times.”
This scene from 1857 captures something essential about Elfrida Andrée: her delight in playing, her self-confidence and her determination to put her musical abilities to use. Yet her right to do so was far from assured. When her teacher Gustaf Mankell engaged her as his deputy at St James’s after her examination, the clergy objected. They considered it “improper and disruptive to worship to see a woman in the organ gallery”. Her musical competence was acknowledged; a woman’s place in professional life still had to be defended.
As an organist, composer, teacher and concert organiser, Andrée would devote her long life to both tasks: developing music and broadening opportunities for women to work within it. Her achievement lay not merely in opening closed doors, but in walking through them with artistic ambitions of her own.
She was born in Visby and grew up in a family in which music, education and social issues were central concerns. Her father Andreas Andrée, a district medical officer, took an active interest in his daughters’ education and their prospects of pursuing independent professional lives. Elfrida received her first music lessons from the cathedral organist Wilhelm Söhrling. In 1855 she moved to Stockholm, where her studies with Gustaf Mankell brought her to the organ at St James’s and led to her much-discussed examination two years later.
Following the rejection of an application for an exemption and a campaign for legislative reform, the organist’s profession was opened to women in 1861. That same year, Andrée took up a post at the Finnish Church in Stockholm, and the following year she also began serving at the French Reformed Church. In 1867 she was appointed organist of Gothenburg Cathedral, a position she held for the rest of her life.
Her composition teachers included Ludvig Norman and, later, Niels W. Gade in Copenhagen. Her output encompasses chamber music, orchestral works, choral music, masses and opera, as well as substantial music for her own instrument. She was not content to confine herself to smaller forms, but also aspired to the large-scale and prestigious genres of musical life. The path to performances and recognition, however, was often arduous.
The organ was both her everyday working instrument and a vehicle for artistic renewal. Through travel and the active exploration of repertoire, she kept in touch with developments in European organ music. During a journey in 1882, she performed at London’s Crystal Palace and tried the organ at the Royal Albert Hall; she also encountered French organ playing in Paris. Music by Liszt, Rheinberger, Guilmant and Widor, among others, broadened her horizons. In her own works, she combined contrapuntal craftsmanship and Romantic lyricism with a growing interest in large-scale forms and a nuanced handling of tone colour.
Andrée’s commitment also extended to the question of who should have access to music. From 1897 she directed the popular concerts of the Gothenburg Workers’ Institute and, together with her niece Elsa Stenhammar, organised more than 800 concerts. At the cathedral, she championed the new Lundén organ, completed in 1905, and subsequently presented it in ambitious “organ lectures” — a designation that enabled the events to take place despite the church council’s scepticism towards concerts.
The works in this programme reflect several aspects of this versatile musician. They encompass the fugue’s mobile web of voices, the chorale’s concentrated motivic development, the intimacy of lyrical melody and the broad horizons of symphonic form. They also show how Andrée returned to her musical ideas and developed them through new versions and scorings. Her organ music is thus not only a testament to a pioneering professional career, but an individual and expressive contribution to the Swedish Romantic repertoire.
Fuga con spirito in E-flat major
In Fuga con spirito in E-flat major, contrapuntal tradition meets the fluid tonal world of Romanticism. The title indicates both form and character: a fugue, but one to be performed with life and spirit. Its elegant gestures and articulation have Baroque affinities, while Andrée treats the rules of fugue with freedom.
The piece is undated and survives in several versions. A version with simpler registration forms part of her Second Organ Sonata. In the more elaborate, independent version, a wider range of stops and echo effects between the manuals expands the dynamic range. Changes of tone colour thus become an active part of the music’s form and expression.
The echo at the end is particularly characteristic. Rather than simply affirming the fugue’s momentum with a forceful conclusion, Andrée allows the sound to recede. The same idea returns in the finale of the B minor Symphony: her feeling for an effective ending could find expression in a backward glance just as readily as in a triumph.
Four Organ Compositions
Four Organ Compositions is not a suite originally conceived as a unified whole. The pieces have separate histories and were brought together when Andrée sought to have them published by Augener in London. A collected manuscript dated January 1893 belonged to her former pupil Alice Brattberg, organist of Christinae Church in Gothenburg. The collection therefore existed by that date, although some of the individual pieces have earlier origins. Together, they show how Andrée combined the practical demands of church music with a personal organ idiom suited to the concert platform.
Prelude to Chorale No. 99 is based on “Så är fullkomnat, Jesu kär”; the number refers to the hymn’s earlier numbering. A characteristic leap of a sixth in the melody provides the starting point for imitative exchanges between the voices. Rather than merely establishing the hymn’s key and mood, Andrée explores its melodic substance in greater depth. Her attention to the tone colours of individual organ stops brings further life to the contrapuntal texture.
In the second piece, Improvisation on a Hymn Tune, the chorale “Höga majestät, vi alla” provides the basis for a stately musical treatment. Motifs from the melody pass between the voices, while the contrast between the organ’s full sound and softer echo effects creates a sense of space and drama. Despite its title, this is a written composition in which improvisatory freedom is combined with tightly unified motifs. Andrée used the piece on several occasions, including the inauguration of Falkenberg Church in 1892. Its monumental character recalls the organ music of Liszt, which she herself helped to introduce to Sweden.
In Cantilena, lyricism comes to the fore. The opening returns after a contrasting middle section, giving the piece a clearly defined ternary form. The music survives in different versions: the collected manuscript contains a shorter version entitled Andante, while the more extended Cantilena develops the contrasts within the material. Changes of tone colour arise not only from contrasts between loud and soft, but also from subtle gradations among the organ’s foundation stops.
Melody, too, has a history spanning different instruments. The material appears in C-sharp minor in Andrée’s piano collection Dikter för piano om vemodet (Poems for Piano on Melancholy) of 1881, while the piece in the manuscript of the organ collection is headed Larghetto. Here we encounter a more introspective side of her music. The expressive melody takes centre stage, allowing the organ to emerge as a singing instrument.
Symphonische Dichtung
Symphonische Dichtung in E minor is Andrée’s last substantial organ work and the only one created specifically for the rebuilt Lundén organ of 1905 in Gothenburg Cathedral. The exact date of the organ version has not been established. The music, however, had a long history: the work is a transcription and transposition of the orchestral poem Varför och därför (Why and Therefore) of 1874. That work, in turn, combines a dramatic introduction with material from the second movement of Andrée’s Piano Sonata, Op. 3, published in 1873. The relationship between the organ and orchestral versions is also documented in the Swedish Musical Heritage catalogue of works.
The title Why and Therefore suggests an underlying idea behind the music, but no detailed programme is known to survive. The work should therefore not be read as a narrative with clearly identifiable events. Its drama lies instead in the unfolding of the music: in the introduction’s charged gestures, the thematic contrasts and the shifts between different tonal worlds.
In the organ version, the earlier music acquired a new form. Andrée draws on the Lundén organ’s rich tonal palette and modern technical resources to achieve flexible and varied registration. There is also a point of contact here with Max Reger’s organ writing, in the indications for bright and dark tone colours. The organ thus becomes not merely a substitute for the orchestra, but an independent medium through which to reimagine the music.
Organ Symphony No. 1 in B minor
Organ Symphony No. 1 in B minor is among Andrée’s most ambitious works for the instrument. It reached its final form in 1890, but grew out of music on which she had worked over a long period, not least her First Organ Sonata. In the intervening years, encounters with new instruments and repertoire had broadened her conception of the organ’s symphonic possibilities.
The work was first performed in 1890 at Christinae Church in Gothenburg by Andrée’s pupil Malvina Lundberg, and was published two years later by Augener in London. Publication brought the music international circulation, but also introduced registration instructions reflecting English practice that differ in several respects from the composer’s own. The different versions therefore allow for somewhat different interpretations of its tonal world.
The first movement, Moderato, is cast in an expansive sonata form in which Andrée combines thematic development with a rich interplay between the organ’s different tonal divisions. A chorale-like theme provides an important contrast to more flowing passages. This is not a borrowed hymn tune, but a theme of Andrée’s own invention. The encounter between the poised, chorale-like gesture and rippling semiquaver figures gives the music both stability and motion. Her meticulous handling of the organ’s different colours is also evident here. Contrasts between the manuals help to articulate the large-scale form, while individual stops lend melodic ideas their distinctive character.
The second movement, Fugetta, is a reworking of the fugue from the First Organ Sonata, now transposed into F-sharp minor. After the broad perspectives of the opening movement, it offers a more concentrated space. Attention turns to the interplay of the voices and the expressive power of contrapuntal motion itself.
In the Andante cantabile, the long melodic line takes centre stage. The material had previously been used in other scorings, including for string orchestra and for piano, and would also appear in a version for cello and organ. The movement can be understood as a “song without words”: the melody unfolds continuously, carrying the expression without the aid of a text. Here, the organ’s ability to combine a sustained singing line with gently shifting tone colour becomes particularly significant.
The finale, Allegro giusto e maestoso, returns to the music of the First Organ Sonata, but in a more refined and tonally expansive form. Parallel motion in the hands lends weight to the tutti passages, while semiquaver figuration drives the music forward. Thematic contrasts and alternations between different tonal groups create a musical trajectory in which power and agility balance one another.
The majestic character is unmistakable, yet the ending avoids the expected grand conclusion. Instead, Andrée allows the music to fade into a soft echo. After the symphony’s sweeping gestures, this distant resonance becomes its final word.
In collaboration with the Royal Swedish Academy of Music