Carolyn Surrick & Ronn McFarlane: Fermi's Paradox
Sono Luminus

Like many a working musician, Carolyn Surrick and Ronn McFarlane saw their lives upended by the pandemic. The two had planned to perform an April 2020 concert that would have seen them play viola da gamba and lute along with members of Ensemble Galilei, but in the days preceding that intended date things gradually fell apart. However, as the two had already spent time rehearsing on Saturday mornings (they apparently live a mere twenty miles away from each other), they decided to parlay that groundwork into a duet recording, the result Fermi's Paradox.

Prior to the album's June recording date, the two continued rehearsing, created new arrangements of favourite tunes, and even wrote new ones of their own. The centuries-spanning set-list includes recent pieces plus long-standing ones by John Dowland and G. F. Telemann, traditionals from England, Ireland, and Sweden, and even a 1971 tune by the Allman Brothers. Here's an album where “She Moved Through the Fair” and “Amazing Grace” sit cozily next to “Little Martha” and “Ave Maria” (the latter featuring a melody by Gounod and based on a prelude by J. S. Bach), and with the hour-long release featuring fifteen tracks, there's ample music to enjoy.

Of course the playing is exemplary, with each musician bringing decades of experience to the collaboration. An acclaimed soloist, the founder of Ayreheart, and founding member of the Baltimore Consort, McFarlane has issued over forty recordings and done much to enrich the lute tradition by adding his own compositions to its repertoire. Surrick, who founded Ensemble Galilei in 1990 and recorded fifteen CDs with the group, has also released recordings with Celtic harper Sue Richards and multi-instrumentalist Ginger Hildebrand; in addition, she's published the poetry collection Between War and Here and in 2019 the book The Last Day.

Setting the tone, McFarlane's precise fingerpicking drives the title track, with Surrick enhancing the folk setting with lustrous rejoinders to his statements; as delightful is the mid-song interlude that slows the piece to a lilt and a coda that's as infectious as it is jubilant. McFarlane appears alone on “Blackwater Side,” a traditional Irish tune with a bluesy edge, and some of the album's most resonant pieces are by him, including “Daniel's Chaconne” and “Trinity Grove,” both elegant tributes to friends. Duane Allman's pretty tune from 1971, “Little Martha,” also lends itself wonderfully to the duo's treatment.

Whereas some songs exude the heartache emblematic of traditional folk (e.g., Dave Shepherd's “The Rose of Raby”), “Dowland's Adew for Master Oliver Cromwell,” a Bach harmonization of Hans Leo Hassler's “O Sacred Head,” and a recitative and aria from Telemann's Cantabile (TWV 41:e5) bring lilting, classical-tinged formality to the set. Medleys appear also: the graceful balladry of “She Moved Through the Fair” partners splendidly with “John Barleycorn,” while another merges the traditional Swedish lament "Gångl åt efter Hamare” with Surrick's poignant “The Last Day” and “Gigue la petite,” written in 1714 by Marin Marais.

Surrick and McFarlane readily admit that under normal circumstances a recording featuring viola da gamba and lute likely wouldn't have happened, given their natural inclination to have friends contribute fiddle or recorder to their releases. Fermi's Paradox, then, exists as a physical document that emerged during an extraordinarily dark period in our lives, but it's no less endearing for having done so.

January 2021