RE: Hon Vong Phu

[Tuan Pham <tuan.pham@unsw.edu.au>]

ianb@sun670.telecom.tandem.com (Ian Bui) wrote

>Just a quick note of clarification: When I said that
>I consider "Hon Vong Phu" to be the "Doan Truong Tan
>Thanh" of VNmese music, I meant to convey the idea
>that the former's place in Viet music is comparable to
>the latter's in Viet literature, and that Le Thuong's
>contribution to Viet culture overall is comparable
>to that of Nguyen Du. Sorry for the confusion.
>

Dear Ian

I understood you. But I think HVP, while being a
very beautiful composition, is a product of the 1940s
and 50s. It reaches the limits of what conventional
Vietnamese music can achieve - conventional rhythms,
conventional tonalities, conventional mythology.

I think Me. Viet Nam is a much greater composition
in terms of its originality, its variety, its unique
structure, its grand scale - as well as a firmer
grounding in Vietnamese folk mythology and music.
To be sure it's much less accessible to the general
public than HVP. I feel that Me. Viet Nam will be the
one Vietnamese composition that will transcend time,
a work that many Ph.D. theses can be written about.
Of course you can say that I am biased :)

Cheers
Tuan Pham