Elfrida Andrée

In her bid for full educational and professional parity with men, and fired with a boundless love of music, she made a magnificent career for herself. Her compositions number more than a hundred: chamber music, organ music, several orchestral works, two symphonies and, in collaboration with the author Selma Lagerlöf, an opera Fritiofs Saga, not forgetting songs, choral compositions and several large works for soloists, choirs and orchestras. Elfrida Andrée became a nationally famous musician, and without question she was one of the most interesting personalities in Swedish music of her time.

Despite the re-awakening of interest in Elfrida Andrée, the curious fact is that very little of her prolific output has been recorded. A widely noticed performance at Hammersta Castle in 1995 of her Piano Quintet in E minor inspired the idea of a CD portrait of Elfrida Andrée as a composer of chamber music, recorded at Hammersta. This Hammersta recording takes us back to an evening of chamber music as it may have sounded at the turn of the century 1800 – 1900.

The recorded program comprises the Piano Quintet, played by the Stockholm Quartet and pianist Lena Johnson, Four Songs, Lena Hoel, soprano, Lena Johnson, piano, and Ylva Larsson, violin, Piano Sonata, Lena Johnson, piano and String Quartet, the Stockholm Quartet.