Société Philharmonique (Philharmonic Society) (1919)

Samedi soir, à la Philharmonique, troisième représentation depuis le debut de la saison, donnée au bénéfice de l'oeuvre du "Secours aux rapatries", qui a vraiment lieu de se féliciter car cette fête fut l'une des plus résussies de la saison, si l'on en juge par les applaudissements et le fou rire qui n'ont cesse d'agiter la salle. C'est dire en peu de mots, que les numéros bien choisis, ont été parfaitement exécutés par des interprètes de choix, ce qui n'étonnera personne, car c'est devenu une habitude pour les artistes de la Philharmonique.

Et "Pour ce que le rire est le propre de l'homme" nous persistons à penser que la gaiété est le meilleur des fortifiants pour les organismes fiables. Allons donc rire a la Philharmonique et foin de la grippe!

Saturday evening at the Philharmonic the third performance since the beginning of the season given to benefit the "Repatriates' Aid" charity, was a resounding success. This event was one of the most successful of the season, judging by the enthusiastic applause and uproarious laughter that filled the hall. In short, the well-chosen acts were flawlessly executed by top-notch performers, which will surprise no one, as this has become a hallmark of the Philharmonic's artists.

And since laughter is the essence of humanity, we remain convinced that cheerfulness is the best tonic for robust health. So let's go laugh at the Philharmonic and forget about the flu!

Tối thứ Bảy tại Hí Viện Khuyến Nhạc, buổi biểu diễn thứ ba kể từ đầu mùa được tổ chức nhằm gây quỹ từ thiện "Hỗ trợ người hồi hương", đã thành công vang dội. Sự kiện này là một trong những sự kiện thành công nhất mùa, nếu được đánh gíá qua những tràng vỗ tay và tiếng cười rộn ràng không ngừng vang vọng khắp khán phòng. Tóm lại, các tiết mục được lựa chọn kỹ lưỡng đã được các nghệ sĩ hàng đầu trình diễn một cách hoàn hảo, điều này không có gì đáng ngạc nhiên, vì đây đã trở thành dấu ấn của các nghệ sĩ tại Hý Viện Khuyến Nhạc.

Tại vì "Tiếng cười là bản chất của con người, "chúng tôi vẫn tin rằng sự vui vẻ là liều thuốc tốt nhất cho sức khỏe dồi dào. Vậy thì hãy đến Hý Viện Khuyến Nhạc và cười thỏa thích, quên đi cơn cảm cúm!

source: Independance Tonkinois 21 janvier 1919

This performance of the Société Philharmonique in Hanoi was a variety show with vaudeville skits, popular songs and classical music. Monsieur Laot directed the orchestra, although calling it an orchestra was perhaps an exaggeration. There were five or six instrumentals who also worked at the Métropole Hotel. They  performed works such as Noces de Figaro - The Marriage of Figaro Overture by Mozart, the "Carillon" from Bizet's l'Arlésienne Suite, and "Pastourelle Poitevine" - a "Chant Provençal" or song from Provence.

The French in Hanoi were starved for entertainment and were enormously grateful for such performance. Many members of the French community participated in these events as amateur performers.

Liste des rue de la ville (A List of City Streets / Danh sách các phố thành phố) (1907)

de Hanoi en Coc-Ngu et en française
(Dénominations adoptée par la Municipalité)

of Hanoi in Quoc-Ngu and in French

(Names adopted by the Municipality)

ở Hà Nội bằng Quốc Ngữ và bằng tiếng Pháp

(Các tên được chính quyền thành phố thông qua)

source: Courrier d'Haiphong 14 septembre 1907

"Kiểm điểm nhạc giới" (Reviewing The Musical World) - Á Cầm (1946)

Nhiều nhạc sĩ đã đi họa đàn tại các tiệm khiêu vũ. Nghệ thuật vị nghệ thuật nghe chừng đã không "sống" được. Các nhạc sĩ thấy có "con đường ngang" xem ra có thể giúp được đôi phần cho đời vốn sẵn thiếu thốn của mình, đã họp nhau từng tốp bảy, tám người, đi nhận việc, để tối tối, mang nghệ thuật ra cho người đùa rỡn. Thật là một cảnh cười ra nước mắt của kẻ cầm đàn.

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.

Le Peril Jaune (Hiểm họa da vàng) - Pencil (1906)

-- Lui beaucoup faire saoûler hier soir -- lui pas laissé ine sou

-- Him make big drunk last night - him not leave a penny

-- Anh ta say xỉn quá tối hôm qua -- anh ta không để một xu nào cả 

source: Courrier d'Haiphong 25 aout 1906

We see a European soldier (French or legionnaire?) and his congaïe. He has gone on quite a drunk. During colonial Indochina, the government and armed forces organized many "grands bals" where there was dancing until dawn. Whatever happened, it involved a great deal of unchecked carousing.

What is the yellow peril? The congaïe could be considered a concubine - a poor young woman who met a man's physical and domestic needs. The term comes from the Vietnam "con gái" meaning daughter or girl. 

Is she the peril? She seems to be always at the ready to spirit away the contents of his pockets. However, she has their joint household to consider. He needs to provide money for her to take to market so she can cook and feed the two of them.

Is the stationing of soldiers like him in an unchecked environment among the "yellow races" the actual peril. It looks like life in Indochina has gotten the better of him.

"Lời phi lộ" (Foreward) (1956)

Đây, từng lớp sóng Nhạc bắt đầu trào lên dâng tràn ngút ngát khắp nẻo đường quê hương: Nhạc Dân tộc Nhạc tiến bộ.

Tất cả một Mùa Nhạc đầy sức sống tươi trẻ đang tưng bừng chỗi dậy tự lòng đất để đâm chồi nây lộc trong sinh khí Cộng Hòa. Trăm ý nhạc đang dạt dào vươn lên trong gió lộng Tự d và bên niềm tin tưởng vô biên ở tương lai xứ sở.

Đã qua rồi cả một quá khứ tối tăm nô dịch mà nghệ thuật nói chung, Âm nhạc nói riêng, bị áp lực của Thực Cộng Phong Kiến bóp chết.

Ngày nay không còn nữa những điệu nhạc ủy mị, sa đọa bệnh hoạn, đã tắt rồi, những giọng ca lời hát hỗn loạn, vong bản, phản ảnh trung thành của một xã hội thối nát đồi bại đã xê vào cõi chết.

Phải rồi, những kiến trúc lỗi thời phải được đạp đổ, san bằng đi để xây cất lại những lâu đài mới nguy nga chói sáng ý Tự do, những rơm rác cỏ dại phải được thiêu hủy đi, để những chồi non lộc tia của một nền nhạc lành mạnh, đầy nhựa sống Dân tộc, được chỗi dậy tươi tốt vươn lên như khóm trúc Cộng Hòa.

Here, each musical wave begins to surge and overflow throughout all the roads of the homeland: People's music, progressive music.

All of a musical season full of youthful vibrancy, animated rises up from the land, sprouts and flourishes in the spirit of the Republic. Hundreds of musical ideas are surging forth in the winds of freedom, fueled by boundless faith in the future of the nation.

They have passed, the dark past of enslavement, where the arts generally, and music in particular, was pressured by colono-communi-feudalism to be strangled.

Today, there are no more sickly, decadent, and morbid melodies, they've died out; the chaotic, rootless voices and lyrics, faithfully reflecting a rotten and corrupt society, have made their way into the realm of the dead.

Yes, the out of date structures must be dismantled and leveled to make way for new, magnificent castles shining with ideals of Freedom; the rubbish and weeds must be burned away so that the tender shoots and buds of a wholesome music, full of National vitality is able to rise up and flourish like the bamboo cluster of the Republic.

....

"Lời phi lộ," Mùa Nhạc Mới (Saigon: ??, 1956)

This editorial was published in the early days of the Republic of Vietnam. A new nation needs a new music. I find this passage interesting because it relies on a rhetoric very similar to that of the communists in the north. The "dark past of enslavement" for the communists was clearly the era of French colonization and also came mean for them the sinister domination of the United States. For the Republic of Vietnam this dark past could be both the French colonization and communist control in the north.

I am also amused by the formulation "Thực Cộng Phong Kiến" - thực is short for "thực dân" (colonialism) and cộng is short for "cộng sản" (communism). "Phong kiến" is a pejorative term that the Vietnamese -- both the Republic of Vietnam and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam -- apply to their own Vietnamese past. 

It means "feudalism" and was coined to the European term. It applies to the economic, social and political system dominating Europe during the time period between the fall of Rome and the rise of the Enlightenment. The Vietnamese also apply phong kiến / feudalism to the time of their independence from China in the 10th century (anno domini) until the 19th century. Thus, the defeat of the Chinese is commensurate with the Fall of Rome and the arrival of French colonizers is commensurate with the Enlightenment, with the distinction that the French were said to have intentionally continued to inflect feudalism on the Vietnamese. Only the land-reform movement brought an end to feudalism in Vietnam.

[Chế Động Phong Kiến ... hình thành và phát triển trong thời kì từ thế kỉ 10 đến thế kỉ 19, sao đó dưới chế đội thực dân, Chế Độ phong kiến vẫ được bảo tồn và những tàn sư của nó còn tồn tại cho đến cải cách ruộng đất - Từ điển bách khoa Việt Nam (Hà Nội: Trung Tâm Biên Soạn Từ Điển Bách Khoa Việt Nam, 1995).]

In additional to using similar political terminology with the communist north, the Republic of Vietnam editorialist employs musical descriptors that the communists applied to nhạc vàng / yellow music like "ủy mị" and "sa đọa". 

The crucial distinction for the southern writer is Freedom / Tự Do. He wishes that his nascent nation will produce music with a fighting spirit like that of the north. Somehow "Freedom" is bringing this into fruition. "Freedom" is also sweeping away the rubbish of the past and the music of the colonial-communist-feudal north. One problem with "Freedom" is that free people often do what they like, not what history, society or their leaders directs them to do.