Born on 19th February 1841 in Visby, died 11th January 1929 in Gothenburg. First taught by her father and Wilhelm Söhrling in Visby, she went on to the Stockholm Conservatory in 1855, graduating as an organist in 1857, at the age of 16. She studied composition with Ludvig Norman and Hermann Berens, as well as having “talks“ with Franz Berwald. Elfrida Andrée and her father campaigned for a legislative amendment enabling women to hold organist appointments. A law to this effect was passed in 1861, and that year she became organist of the Finnish Congregation in Stockholm and also, the following year, of the French Reformed Church. Conjointly with these appointments, she taught singing at various schools. Through a new public campaign she helped, in 1865, to open up telegraph appointments for women, herself becoming Sweden’s first woman telegraphist. She became organist of Gothenburg Cathedral in 1867, an appointment which she retained until her death. In Gothenburg she displayed an immense appetite for work. She gave church recitals as organist, choir trainer and harpist, she coped with a daunting administrative workload, she taught and examined organists, and from 1897 onwards she directed more than 800 “popular concerts“. She was made a Member of the Royal Academy of Music in 1879.

In her efforts to elevate women's cultural awareness, Elfrida Andrée frequently resorted to music on the grand scale. She often came up against the compact prejudice of a world dominated by men. When she was introduced to Danish Composer Niels W. Gade, he was horrified at meeting a woman cathedral organist, but he became convinced of her ability and helped her to organise concerts in Copenhagen. In addition to recitals in Gothenburg and the provinces, she also performed at the Crystal Palace in London.

Her largest works include the opera Fritiofs Saga (libretto by Selma Lagerlöf, after poems by Tegnér), only parts of which have been per formed. The overture and a symphony in A minor were on the programme for the concert at Dresden in 1904 which was perhaps her greatest success. It is also worth noting that this symphony (written in 1879), a string quartet in D minor and an organ symphony in E-flat major took all three prizes at an international composers’ competition in Brussels in 1894. Her output comprises more than 100 works: chamber music, piano pieces, choral compositions and songs. Her ballad Snöfrid for solo voice and orchestra was played by virtually every orchestral association in Sweden. Her music sometimes fell in with the decorous sentimentality of the age, and Ludvig Norman, her teacher, commented that “I suppose not everything presented is startlingly new or conspicuously inspired, and the precursors, Mendelssohn and Gade, are readily discernible“.
Stig Jacobsson