Danish String Quartet: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

An abundance of facial hair is not restricted to the sensitive male indie-rocker set. Three of the four players in the Danish String Quartet could easily pass for hipster Brooklyn beard farmers. “We are simply your friendly neighborhood string quartet with above average amounts of beard,“ the group’s website says. Yet what’s really important about the ensemble is how they play — and judging from this performance behind Bob Boilen’s desk, these Nordic lads possess warmth, wit, a beautiful tone and technical prowess second to none. Like most string quartets, they thrive on classics by Brahms, Beethoven, Haydn and the like. But this group recently took a musical detour that landed them in the foggy inlets of the Faroe Islands (a Danish outpost halfway between Norway and Iceland) and various Nordic hamlets where folk tunes are played and passed on. “Folk music is the music of small places,“ the quartet notes on its new album Wood Works, which includes the tunes