Anonymous 4 With Bruce Molsky: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

It was December 1990 — more than a year before the first Anonymous 4 album was released — when NPR invited four slightly shy women into our studio to sing 13th-century Christmas music. Back then, we already knew the manifold beauty of their sound, its purity and accuracy, was something unique. Now, some 25 years and 21 albums later, the a cappella vocal quartet is calling it quits at the end of 2015. But not before one final visit to NPR. Original members Ruth Cunningham, Marsha Genensky and Susan Hellauer, plus Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek, came bearing music from their new album, 1865, released to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War. They brought along a gifted friend, singer, banjo player and fiddler Bruce Molsky, who also appears on the album. He’s a keen choice of partner. Molsky’s folksy baritone and his instrumental contributions provide a rustic foil to the crystalline tones of Anonymous 4, giving the songs a more authentic feel. A sense of loss, a longing for home and gene