In August 2004, I was in Stockholm to witness e.s.t. record their album Viaticum. I arrived at the recording studio early, about 8am, and Svensson was at the piano, his back to the control room, playing a piece from Dimitri Shostakovich's Preludes and Fugues whose intensity and sheer density of notes was overwhelming. He then switched to ‘Eighty-Eight Days in My Veins.’ Laid back, relaxed and unhurried, this was the quintessential e.s.t., and, as it turned out, a song he would record later that day for the album. The transition was so complete it was as if someone had abruptly changed channels on DAB radio. When asked if we were ever going to hear the kind of technique he unleashed on Shostakovich he said, “No, that's not me, not the way I play, I play that to get my fingers moving.” It was a salutary lesson in self-editing. Svensson had developed a piano style that was uniquely his own; a reflection of who he was. The fact that he had the technical ability to dazzle audiences was irrelevant as it was not the kind of pianist he wanted to be. Home.S. places this episode in perspective.

Effectively a collection of nine solo preludes in the Chopin-esque meaning of the word – self-contained compositions that each convey a specific idea or emotion. There's a wide-awake lucidity about this music in the way it spurns complexity, is diatonic in places, with melodic development central to its meaning. Svensson's concern with the latter is such that there are moments where he seems interested in pursuing the direction each piece simply to see where it might lead him using sequential development, inversion, extension, truncation, and even repetition.

Whether these preludes are future compositions, or ideas to be developed with the trio, or are for an intended solo album, we don't know. But throughout these recordings, there is a humbleness and unpretentiousness in creation that gives them a profundity that would be swallowed-up by bravura technique. Even now, 15 years since his passing, these recently discovered gems are clearly the product of an astute musical mind.