547 Jataka Tales Piano Works Op. 3 Part 1 is released

Jataka Tales are stories of previous births of Lord Buddha before his last and final birth as Gotama Buddha in around 500 B.C. In Buddhism, one needs to commit oneself to many good deeds in many lives before being able to achieve full awakening and becomes a Buddha to teach fellow beings so they too could be permanently freed from suffering. There are 547 of these stories, from which the first 28 were the subjects of Part 1 of this piano work compositions.

The selection of the first 28 into Part 1 of this project was of an unusual circumstance. Right after the completion of 48 Preludes & Fugues Op. 2, I felt that I was propelling myself into something. It was a time of great change in me, primarily in spiritual journey that I began to re-discover what I left off few years ago. At the time, I strongly felt that composing music would help me find and walk the path. Music was a mean to an end. I decided to take it to the extreme, by committing myself to compose piano music for each and every 547 Jataka stories – a difficult endeavour but not impossible, as it had previously taken me one year to complete 48 pieces, I figured it would take me around six years for this project.

So I began composing from the tale number one upward without skip. It is worth noting here that among these 547 stories, 10 are 'great' stories which features special incarnations where Lord Buddha did extraordinary deeds in much more depth and severity than other stories. Most artists and interpreters would select these 10 great stories as their subjects right away. I did not just because I planned to do them all anyway!

But after around 6 months into composition, something unexpected occurred as I finished the 28th story. At the time I began doing meditation in a routine and systematic way. It was something I learned in retreat courses and a long-term course before, but I never put myself to continue to practice on a daily basis. I found myself progressing very quickly through self-imposed discipline and renewed interest. I studied much more in depth to advance my practice and really did it, not just reading and thinking and assuming. Quite suddenly, I found myself unable to compose. This was in addition to profoundly less enjoyment in movies, food, drink, and other mundane experience and activities. However, I felt much more calm, content, and happy. There was so much less suffering and agony, so much less urge to do or achieve something, so much less conflict and pressure that needed release. I then realised that the creation of art is in many part a mean to release, to put forward what we experienced, thought, and felt, in ways that are conducive to deeper comprehension and potentially transform the mind of the artists and the audience. Now this urge to release stemmed from conflict and pressure inside the artists. They can be comparatively human and gross, like love, suffering, hope, and despair, like in romantic period. They can be above human, albeit still in the realm of human perception, like god and abstract concepts and ideals. They can be just forms which exhibit beauty and the balance of harmony and disharmony like those in classical period, still these are human perception that could be expressed. I realised that I now had much less of these urges to express. The meditation practice was transforming me to suffer less and being much more harmonious and content within myself. Ironically yet truthfully, I cannot compose music in the old way anymore because experientially there is much less cause or 'reason' to compose. When I realised this, I hesitated for a month, to see if it was just a temporary artistic blockade. It was not, so I decide to wrap up the project as the first part, or first period, of the plan.

This circumstance is by no mean decreasing or negating the inherent values and usefulness of this work. On their own, these piano pieces were composed to the highest standard that I could conceive. They were a culmination of knowledge, experience, and artistic sensitivity that I had gathered from the composition of 48 Preludes & Fugues. In relation with the subject stories of the Jataka Tales, I hoped the music would represent an interpretation that would help anyone to access, appreciate, and absorb these wonderful stories. If there is any single person who is inspired from this absorption and direct oneself to the right direction in spiritual development, these compositions will have done what they were meant to be of use.

Also, this circumstance does not spell the end of this project. The task lies ahead for me to invent new ways to express using a new mode of composition, that is compatible with a changed mind, from art that serves one self to art that serves all.

Thank you, with love, gladness, joy, and peace.

Chitpong Kittinaradorn
November, 2018

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