This is the third release from Caprice, where we do a deep dive into the expressive and varied world of Swedish organ music, on the album Orchestral Transitions: Swedish Symphonic Music for the Organ.

Organist and musicologist Jonas Lundblad takes us on a journey up on the Swedish organ lofts of the turn of the last century, where the music quickly developed in a more symphonic, orchestral direction. Music by composers such as Hugo Alfvén, Wilhelm Stenhammar, Kurt Atterberg, Sara Wennerberg-Reuter and Otto Olsson, illustrate a time of creativity and innovative spirit. Several of the works on the album are also premiere recordings.

As the instruments throughout the 19th century grew in both size and complexity, so did the tonal possibilities, and many composers took advantage of these with new, creative ways of composing for the organ. So when the country's orchestras gradually moved from the churches to the newly-built concert halls, it became the organ's task to fill the symphonic-sounding hole they left behind – because there was still plenty of music written where the natural role of the instrument to deal with historical and religious symbolism was considered indispensable.

This album has been recorded on an instrument that illustrates the tonal ideals and possibilities of the time particularly well; the large organ in Västerås Cathedral, built by the firm Åkerman & Lund in 1898, is a well-preserved and restored example of the expansive organbuilding artisanship that Sweden enjoyed at the turn of the last century.