Ethereal, simple, and gently insinuating, Anonymous 4 recordings are reportedly played during childbirth, for comatose accident victims, and, under less-fraught circumstances, at Christmas - when the group gives its annual Philadelphia Chamber Music Society concert, this year at 8 p.m. Friday at Holy Trinity Church on Rittenhouse Square. This is the group's 10th appearance since 1998 (it was absent from 2004 to 2006).
Next year, the quartet celebrates its 25th anniversary by premiering a work by cutting-edge composer David Lang. Ancient-music specialists often seek out living composers, but few cross musical centuries as easily as Anonymous 4 - or repeatedly rewrite the recording industry's notions of commercial viability. During an hour in Hellauer's Upper West Side apartment last week, she and colleague Marsha Genensky couldn't always explain why they keep flourishing. They do what feels right, sometimes casually, sometimes after long consideration.
On Anonymous 4's Christmas associations: "People want to hear . . . any music that's a cappella, medieval, or Renaissance," says Hellauer.
On their music's spiritual power: "I can't say that we share the same faith in the way that it existed back in the day . . . but we can feel the power of the faith," says Genensky. "It may not sound the way someone heard it in 1300, but the power will come out."
"I sometimes rewrite the words," says Hellauer. "The average medieval Christian was anti-Semitic."
On their foray into American folk music: "I wasn't involved with folk music on any level except that I loved Simon & Garfunkel," says Hellauer. "But I was listening to public radio . . . something on traditional American music, and all I could hear was the harmonies of medieval music."
