REVIEW: Anonymous 4

Posted by arts_reviews

Posted: April 5, 2008 - 10:43 pm

By MIKE DUNHAM

For a program consisting mostly of gospel songs, Saturday night's performance by Anonymous 4 had all the inspiration of a preacher giving the eulogy at a funeral for someone he never met.

The (usally) a cappella female quartet offered a just-over-half-full Atwood Hall audinece it's nearly perfect pitch - maybe not quite as perfect as it was the last time they came through town - tight coordination and excellent diction. In fact, anyone planning to sing in English should be required to hear these musicians and try to copy them. And the attention paid to the shape-note songs, one of the group's several claims to fame, was as educational as it was entertaining.

But the show seldom moved beyond a static, subdued feel. Most of the words had something to do with going to be with Jesus, but few of the dynamics suggested that the singers were excited by that prospect. Some of the tameness might be due to the performers' quest for authenticity, and the church style can, too often, be quite subdued.

Still, a degree of intensity is required even in religious folk music, as in all music. And we heard more intensity and emotional authenticity at the Fur Rendezvous Native Musicale than we heard from the singers on Saturday. "I'll Fly Away," which closed the first half of the program, is a perennial crowd-rouser at both religious revivals and secular folk music events. Here it felt tepid.

Some thought the sound was nicest when the singers gave into gentleness, as in their rendition of "Shall We Gather at the River." I preferred the edginess, even if academic, of the shape-note songs.

But everyone liked the two-piece orchestra that accompanied much of the singing. Darol Anger (fiddle, mandolin) and Scott Nygaard (guitar) received the biggest applause for their duos, including a long jam after "Father Adieu" and a medley of Appalachian dance tunes. Nygaard's left hand turned his six string into a bel canto vehicle more than once. Anger was pure joy to hear, natural, fluid, imaginative, assertive. Toward the end of what might have been "Ol' Dan Tucker" in a previous life, he was conjuring three or more different voices out of his fiddle in a climax that Bach himself would have admired.

There was an encore. The group tried to get the crowd to join in, which a few did with all the enthusiasm of citizens summoned to jury duty. Some persistent fans then tried to pull another encore from the visitors, but Anger had walked off stage with both his instruments and nobody walked back on.

No doubt there are places and dates where the audience is more receptive, the performers more on fire, or both. But after the Saturday show, maybe it was best to remain anonymous.

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