Remedy Thirty-One (2025)

Shortly after receiving this commission from Swiss Chamber Concerts, I attended a fascinating lecture on medieval medical texts by Dr. Debby Banham at Newnham College, Cambridge. With further help from Debby, I found (and freely translated from Old English) the thirty-first remedy (“for a good bonesalve, also good for headache, and infirmity of all the limbs…”) in the Lacnunga, a collection of miscellaneous Anglo-Saxon medical texts and prayers.

In my little song, I imagine the singer to be a medicine woman and the cellist to be the patient (who in this instance seems to be afflicted by constant attacks of major sevenths and minor ninths). The piano part represents the myriad ingredients – many of which I had to google – that go into the mind-bogglingly complex recipe for the remedy. This song could be performed in an entirely serious manner, but I imagine that, if I were the medicine woman, I might become increasingly exasperated as the song progresses, with the final recitation of prayers feeling like a step too far. At any rate and by the end of the song, it seems, from the cello’s more melodic material, that Remedy Thirty-One has worked!

Cheryl Frances-Hoad