In December 1999, Icelandic avant-pop singer Björk and acclaimed British string ensemble the Brodsky Quartet gave two intimate, stand-alone concerts at London’s historic Union Chapel.
The two concerts, held on 9 and 11 December 1999, were critically praised by the London press but have never received an official release outside of a small selection of performances found on Björk’s 2002 box set, Family Tree.
[5] Also in 1997, Björk, the Brodsky, and German DJ/musician Alec Empire of Atari Teenage Riot collaborated on an EP which was to feature four tracks: "April", "5 Years", "Sod Off", and "Joga".
The Brodsky created new arrangements of many Björk songs, taken mostly from her 1997 record, Homogenic,[4] and the show was so spontaneous that the singer didn’t hear the new compositions until that very afternoon.
[4] In his review for The Independent, journalist Phil Johnson was extremely positive, referring to Björk as “arguably the most interesting pop artist of the age” and predicted that the concert would probably be “the best” show he and the rest of the audience would ever see, an outcome “no-one could have predicted.”[4] Seating was extremely limited but in his review, Johnson wrote that “the 500 seats could have been sold 10 times over” and noted Roni Size, Krust and Portishead in attendance.
[4] Songs known to have been performed that night include “It’s Oh So Quiet”, “Hunter”, “Jóga”, popular jazz standard “My Funny Valentine”, and a cover of “Anyone Who Had a Heart”, written by Burt Bacharach and originally recorded by Dionne Warwick.
A year after the Bristol show, Björk and the Brodsky Quartet performed two sold out concerts at London’s Union Chapel on 9 and 11 December 1999.
Monk eventually heard Björk’s rendition through a bootleg MP3 given to her by one of her students and admired how the Icelander “captured the essence of the piece” without simply mimicking the original recording.
The Brodsky’s rendition of the jazz standard, “Like Someone In Love” featured on Björk’s Debut album, was heralded as “sublime” by The Independent[12] and began with an extract from Johann Sebastian Bach’s first cello suite.
The Brodsky’s versions of Björk’s “5 Years” and “The Modern Things” were praised by the press,[12] with the latter being considered an evening turning point where both vocalist and string quartet “develop into a coherent whole”.
9 songs were eventually released on Family Tree, a box set featuring rare and unreleased material from the first 10 years of Björk’s solo career.
The 15-minute composition premiered in 2003 at the first major London exhibition of American photographer Nan Goldin entitled Devil’s Playground, specifically in a slide show portion called “Heart Beat”.
[12] It wasn’t until the Brodsky’s reworking of Björk’s “The Modern Things”, an electronic song rearranged for strident strings, when the merging of voice and string quartet became a “complete whole.” “Her voice is extraordinary,” she continued, and credited the Brodsky’s “generously restrained performance” for giving “Björk the space to reach new heights of perfection.”[12] The Union Chapel itself has described Björk’s concerts at their venue as “one of the most legendary of Union Chapel gigs!”[25] Several news outlets at the time reported that the Union Chapel concerts were scheduled for a live CD release[18][9] which never materialized.