Art KYRIE / Music NOTHING MORE THAN THIS

Of NOTHING MORE THAN THIS Christina writes… Nothing More Than This references Buddha’s words to his disciple Shariputra, as captured in the Heart Sutra – ‘Oh Shariputra, form is only void, void is all form; there is, then, nothing more than this … ‘ (translation by Roshi Jiyu Kennett), and was conceived as a dance (suggested by the feeling-tone of the Kyrie piece by Flossie) celebrating the dance of all beings and their arising/passing away/arising, etc.   The somewhat lighter and more pointillistic quality of this piece evoked this idea of a great dance, in which all beings are radically equal – a dance in which each being offers its life utterance as a kind of prayer, but perhaps in a somewhat more celebratory way than the petitionary stance embodied in the Kyrie.  There may, indeed, be nothing more than this, but we are dealing with a very big this.

Of KYRIE Flossie writes… Signifies the collected prayers of people approaching the divine – at any given time or place in history. Individuals have always gathered together for a high stretch towards the unknown and the almighty. Traditionally, the Kyrie is a musical setting for either the brief petition “Lord, have mercy,” as used in various offices of the Greek Orthodox Church and of the Roman Catholic Church or the brief response or petition in services in the Anglican and Lutheran Churches, beginning with the words, “Lord, have mercy upon us.”