ANONYMOUS 4, PERFORMANCE HALL, UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY, DEC. 6

Anonymous 4

It’s been a quarter century since four women with similar interests formed a vocal group with a musicologically correct name and began performing. And the world of early music has never been the same since.

There have been a few personnel changes in the intervening 25 years but the artistry hasn’t. The present quartet – Ruth Cunningham, Marsha Genensky, Susan Hellauer, Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek – carries on the tradition and continues to make early music come alive for modern ears. The four bring an infectious enthusiasm for the music that rubs off on their audiences no matter where they sing.

To celebrate this important milestone, Anonymous 4 has created a special program with which it has been touring this season. Taken from the repertoire of their many albums for harmonia mundi usa, the program is a wondrous journey through 25 glorious years of music making that offers a glimpse into the group’s vast repertoire that spans a millennium. And for the holidays, the foursome has tweaked the program a bit to include music from several of their Christmas-themed CDs.

It was this seasonal program that Anonymous 4 brought with it when it came to Performance Hall in Logan on Tuesday, as part of the Chamber Music Society of Logan’s concert series. On the program was a new piece by David Lang, “the wood and the vine,” written specially for the group’s silver anniversary. It’s a cleverly done retelling of the Tristan and Isolde legend in which Lang deftly blends medieval sounding melodies with a contemporary harmonic language.

The group also sang John Tavener’s otherworldly setting of William Blake’s poem “The Lamb.”

There were also a few American songs from the 19th century, including a piece by William Billings.

Anonymous 4 is at the top of its game now. The group performs this repertoire convincingly like no one else can. There are several other early music groups out there, but Anonymous 4 is without question in a class of its own.