Cảnh tượng đỡ buồn hơn là các nhạc sĩ họa đàn tại các phòng trà. Ở đây ta được nghe âm nhạc cổ điển mà sự trình bày cũng có đôi phần điêu luyện. Tuy vậy, con người có tài âm nhạc xành nghe vẫn chưa được vừa ý.
Many musicians have taken up playing music in dancehalls. Art for art's sake it seems has not survived. Seeing a "sideline" that might help alleviate their already impoverished lives, musicians gathered in groups of seven or eight, have taken on this jobs, every evening, they bring their art to people just fooling around. That's a truly heartbreaking comical scene for those who played music.
A less miserable situation is that of musicians playing in tea rooms. Here, one could hear classical music presented with a certain degree of skill. However, even those with musical ability and discerning ears were still not satisfied.
"Kiểm điểm nhạc giới," Khuyến nhạc March 1, 1946, 4.
This editorial article was written by either Thẩm Oánh or Nguyễn Văn Giệp, the two most active participants in the Hội Khuyến Nhạc in 1945 and 1946. The latter was a professional musician who had a solid education in western classical music, who was a pedagogue, and who played music professionally in dancehalls and tearooms. The former was a songwriter who strongly advocated for the elevation of music appreciation according to western classical music standards as a way to elevate Vietnam as a nation to be taken seriously in the global community of nations.
The unaddressed demon in the room was a societal attitude of "xướng ca vô loại" - musicians as singers of no class. Looking at the Chinese word that vô loại derives from - 無類 has a more strongly pejorative meaning someone or something that is not fit to be called human. Music as a profession was at the lowest level of human activity.
This attitude was sharply at odds with the way that Europeans regarded music, especially the music of the western classical tradition. Reverence for classical music gradually came to be an important marker of class distinction in Vietnam. In 1946 this was less clearly the case and required musicians like Thẩm Oánh and Nguyễn Văn Giệp to actively propagandize for the status of western classical musicianship.
Serious, highly trained musicians should not have to debase their art. Underlying this outlook was the implication that a civilized society should underwrite the efforts of the serious musician, either as active patrons of this art or through government support. Some of this government support has come to pass. Patronage has been slower but it is also growing.
There is a strange contradiction at work here. This editorial and activity was occurring at the very moment of a revolution, a revolution very poplar among nearly all Vietnamese at that moment, against a European colonizer. Along with arguing for the necessity of western (European!) classical music, they also argue that Vietnamese music prior to European contact and European influence was deficient and perhaps merited the insult of "xướng ca vô loại." I guess this is equivalent to using the master's weapons to fight the master?
Á Cầm is a fun pseudonym meaning Asian lute.
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