Vogler to Netzel: Swedish Organ Culture in the 19th Century

There was consensus within the relatively recently founded Royal Swedish Academy of Music concerning the falling standards of church music and organ playing. The Swedish nation was reeling from multiple war efforts, and there was an obvious lack of both organisation and competence among organists. However, leading figures like the Academy Secretary Pehr Frigel also wanted to establish a new, elevated aesthetic. After the galante style of the Rococo era, Italian vocal polyphony and the music of Johann Sebastian Bach was to inspire a more tightly bound and dignified style of organ playing. The Academy of Music also shifted its educational focus in the first half of the nineteenth century to primarily training organists. Through them, proficiency also in musical theory would be disseminated among churches and schools across the nation.

Jonas Lundblad

In 1820, the organ builders Gustaf Andersson and Pehr Zacharias Strand were dispatched on a study tour across Europe. By examining organs by Gottfried Silbermann, J. G. Mende, and C.H.A. von Knoblauch, they would later be able to construct new organs of higher grade in Sweden. The only preserved major organ by Gustaf Andersson is located in Östra Husby Church on the peninsula Vikbolandet, south of the city of Norrköping. This majestic instrument has a wider tonal foundation than the organs of earlier generations. Uniquely for Swedish organ building, it displays a clear influence from the baroque organs of the Silbermann tradition, which still characterised much of German organ building at the time. Here, a classical sound is combined with the expressive flute and string registers of the early Romantic era. The instrument was inaugurated in 1827, a time when improvisation was still the dominant way of playing the organ. Among the few notated organ works from this period, several of those by musicians in the Östergötland province are performed on this recording.

Recorded, edited and mixed by Erik Sikkema, 12th Oct 2020 – 14th Jun 2021.
Graphic design: Sofia Berry
Photography: Ola Högberg
Executive producer: Erik Hamrefors