I remember browsing through Facebook at some point and seeing a post pointing out similarities between the Chinese symbols
for music and medicine. I kept the idea in the back of my mind…
and retrieved it soon after making the acquaintance of Mr Fan Li who kindly guided me through the logic of the symbols involved:

music = 音乐 (simplified) / 音樂 (traditional)
medicine = 药材 / 葯

There being no obvious correspondence, Fan Li then asked if I perhaps meant ”medicine” rather than ”medication”, pointing out that medication = 藥 , consisting of the symbol for music plus an additional upper part coming from 草, meaning "grass".

Thus, the combination of music with grass transliterates as ”music of the grass” or ”music of the plant”, resulting in the traditional Chinese symbol of 藥 , meaning medication (pron.”yào”).

My sincere thanks go to Fan Li and his wife Jingsi Peng for their help in realising the conception of the piece and providing calligraphy for the title page respectively.

An acknowledgement of ongoing gratitude is due to my two direct musical mentors, Don Kay and Simon Reade, in particular concerning their respective works for string orchestra, Dance Concertante and Sonata for Strings.

SB, Berlin, 8.11.2021

Instrumentation: String Orchestra

Downloadable sample pages found at the link here.