Vietnamese musicians categorise each tune of Vietnamese traditional music as belonging to the northern, central, or southern regions. While there are significant commonalities between the three regions, each one has its idiosyncratic genres, methods of melodic construction, and musical uses.
‘Vọng cổ’ (Nostalgia for the Past) is one of the most famous tunes from the southern Vietnamese tradition. Commonly found in performances of cải lương, which is a theatrical tradition with origins in the early 20th century, this melancholy tune contains traces of other traditions, musicians, and tunes.
Since musicians perform from memory, they simultaneously recall previous versions of the tune and the musicians who played them. For knowledgeable listeners, too, every performance of ‘Vọng cổ’ carries a history of musical development, people, and musical resilience.
In the recording linked here, musician Tấn Thành performs the tune on the Vietnamese ghi ta phím lõm, which is a modified guitar with scoops carved between the frets of the fingerboard to allow the musician to play appropriate ornamentation. For this tune, the ornamentation helps the musician bring out its melancholy character. The recording begins with an improvised prelude called a rao, and the tune itself follows. As of this writing, the video has more than three million views, which suggests its incredible popularity.
‘Lưu thủy trường’ is a tune from the southern Vietnamese musical tradition đờn ca tài tử, which means ‘music for diversion’. Unlike ‘Vọng cổ’, this is a happy tune. The well-known musician Nguyễn Vĩnh Bảo (1917–2021) recorded this version in his music studio in Ho Chi Minh City. The recording starts with the sound of a hammer striking metal—a sound common in the rapidly expanding city. Instead of trying to ignore the hammer, however, Nguyễn Vĩnh Bảo conversed with it through his music. He entered into a duet with the hammer and allowed it to inspire him. Tradition, then, actively engages with and helps musicians make sense of the present. For more detail about this tune, this recording, and the đờn ca tài tử tradition, see my monograph, Seeding the Tradition: Musical Creativity in Southern Vietnam.
Moving from the southern Vietnamese traditions, ‘Lý cây đa’ (Song of the Banyan) is a folksong from northern Vietnam. The folksong is well-known not only because it circulates in performances and television programmes, but also because Vietnamese schools teach it in Year 7. This recording is labelled a ‘karaoke’ version of the tune, so students use it to learn how to sing the song. In essence, Vietnamese teachers use it to develop the musical literacy of their students.
‘Lý cây đa’ is also well-known among Vietnamese diaspora communities, and it has even served as inspiration for other musical works. California-based composer Lê Văn Khoa incorporated the melody of the folksong into the fourth movement (‘Full Moon’) of his Symphony ‘Vietnam 1975’, which he wrote initially to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the end of the war in 1995. The movement begins with an abstracted version of the folksong played first by the chimes and then by several woodwind instruments. The glockenspiel then plays a more recognisable version of the folksong, but it appears incomplete without the appropriate ornamentation associated with the tune. When the Vietnamese zither (đàn tranh) enters to perform the melody with its recognisable ornamentation, the folksong finally seems complete. The melody is then playfully passed from one section of the orchestra to another.
The compact disc recording of this symphony was released for the thirtieth anniversary in 2005. The recording carries addition meaning in the present, however, as it was recorded by the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, several online Vietnamese commentators, as well as the composer himself, expressed support for Ukraine and the musicians who brought this work to life.
