Elfrida Andrée

Elfrida Andrée was born on 19 February 1841 in Visby and died on 11 January 1929 in Gothenburg. She was the first woman in Sweden to graduate as an organist and to become a cathedral organist; she became organist of Gothenburg Cathedral in 1867 and remained so until she died. She studied composition with Ludvig Norman at the educational institution of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. As a composer of chamber music and symphonic works, she was a female pioneer in Sweden, and the same goes for her activity as an orchestral conductor.

Elfrida Andrée came from a politically liberal family in Visby. At the age of 14 she travelled to Stockholm to train as an organist, and two years later, in 1857, she became the first woman in Sweden to have gained an organist’s diploma at the Kungliga Musikaliska akademien (the Royal Swedish Academy of Music). She did so as an extramural student (privatist), women being ineligible for admission to the academy. In 1861, when she was 20, she and her father helped, through correspondence and discussions with MPs, to bring about a change in the law, enabling women to apply for and hold organist appointments.

At the age of 24, Elfrida Andrée composed a piano quintet which raised her to the élite among Swedish composers, a stratum which was wholly a men’s preserve. Two years later, in 1867, she became organist of Gothenburg Cathedral, the first woman in Europe to hold such an appointment. Her first symphony was performed in Stockholm in 1869, and two years later she herself conducted an orchestra in Gothenburg. It was at about this time that, influenced by the English philosopher John Stuart Mill, she formulated her motto: ‘the elevation of womankind’. Pioneering achievements followed in rapid succession, and it was a long and unusual life that ended in 1929. This was the ‘emancipation epoch’. At her birth in 1841, women had practically no rights. By 1929, the year of her death, their financial and legal position had been radically changed, a wider range of employment was open to them and they now had the vote.

As a composer too, Elfrida Andrée was a pioneer during her Stockholm years. Women had composed songs in the early 19th century, but no Swedish women had written any major compositions. Between 1860 and 1867 Elfrida Andrée composed several chamber music works. She submitted, anonymously, a piano quintet to Musikaliska Konstföreningen (the Swedish Art Music Society). It was accepted and published in 1865. There was great surprise when it became known that the ‘man’ behind this composition was a woman.

In 1897 she was named leader of the Gothenburg Workers Institute Concerts, establishing her reputation as the first Swedish woman to conduct a symphony orchestra. For her services, she was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. She left more than a hundred works extant.

Biography by Eva Öhrström, translated by Roger Tanner.