Of Sea and Land (2025) 7’15

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Commissioned by Gareth Hudson and Toby Thirling as part of Litany for the Border

For perusal score contact me at: eleanorcullymusic@gmail.com

“Dum iactantur puppes salo”, an antiphon for Matins from the Coldingham Breviary, recalls an early miracle performed by Cuthbert in which he saves drowning monks to the shore. I arranged the plainchant in canon, evocative of ships on the surf, and connected it with quotes from residents about the landscape of the past and the liminality of spirituality. The piece starts and ends with a slowed-down arrangement of the refrain from the KOSB Quick March “Blue Bonnets o’er the Border”, for which I altered the words to represent marsh-land and water. Throughout the duration of the movement, two soprano parts give voice to the nuns of Bondington, a long-lost early medieval convent just outside of Berwick, featured in The Friar’s Trail by John Convey. The canonical hours of everyday life are condensed to the duration of the motet and overlaid to mark the passing of time.