Bac Ninh (in Ha Bac province), 30 kilometres north of Hanoi, a land possessed of an ancient history and culture, is especially famous for the musical folklore peculiar to it called "Quan Ho." Quan Ho airs are among the finest tunes in Vietnamese traditional music and the melodies are known and loved today all over the country. Historical documentation and the research undertaken on the living reality during the last decade allow us already to consider this artistic and ideological phenomenon for its origin, antiquity and veracity as being an authentic treasury of our traditional culture.

The Quan ho is essentially vocal folk music and is now being cultivated in 49 villages in Ha Bac province where it is chanted without instrumental accompaniment. We are concerned here with a coherent system of several hundred genuine canticles which often attain perfection with regard to their form. The geographical feature of the "quan ho" is that these songs are concentrated within an area of less than 60 sq.km. This musical density in time and space is seldom observed in other vernacular songs. Quan ho romances of a deep lyrical character enrapture with their sweet melodies and the straightforward and direct manner in which they are sung, with no conscious expressive effort and with clarity of enunciation.

As regards their composition they fall into three categories according to whether or not the canzonnet proper is preceded by a short prefatory declamation (called "bi?" or "bi? da^u" in the esoteric vocabulary) and whether or not it is followed by a tiny coda ("ca^u ddo^'" or flexional sentence in Vietnamese) which most often modulates into a higher scale and another mode to end the song on a bright and gay tone.

This folk song conveys an eloquent illustration of the specific language of traditional music: it derives from poetry and is familiar with all the latter's poetical metres, most particularly the 6/8, such as this graceful praise of the Quan Ho singer in the song of the Pretty Bamboo (Ca^y Tru'c Xinh) which consists of couplets of six and eight feet all permeated with courteous and picturesque poetry:

Tru'c xinh tru'c mo.c sa^n ddi`nh

Anh xinh anh ddu+'ng mo^.t mi`nh cu~ng xinh

Tru'c xinh tru'c mo.c bo+` ao

Anh xinh anh ddu+'ng cho^~ na`o cu~ng xinh

Meanings:

This song has achieved a masterful treatment of the poetic couplet. The melody asserts itself on the frame-work of the verse by transcending it with a view to partaking of another pulsation, that of musical emotion. The exquisite and rich melodic inspiration of the Quan Ho testifies to the almost unlimited possibilities of the five-tone language. The reason accounting for it is that this folk-song proceeds on the one hand from this common propriety of the pentatonic system defined by modern musicology as "pentatonic metabole" and on the other hand of a specific feature of the Vietnamese traditional melodic thought: "the flexional and melismatic technique."

The pentatonic metabole is related to the musical system. It is a modal step resulting from the fluctuation of certain degrees of the pentatonic scale, giving rise to other scales which are somewhat related, if not in the spirit, at least in the equivalence of tonal modulation. This behaviour is frequently observed in Vietnamese folk-song especially in the Quan Ho, the most developed form which makes it one of its aesthetic criteria. Thus the song entitled "Tre`o le^n qua'n do^'c"(Climbing up to the inn on the hillside) so lovely in its pithiness and simplicity. (Meaning of the lyrics: Let's go up to the hill-side inn for a te^te-a`-te^te at the foot of the banyan on this night of the full moon.)

This melody develops two related pentatonic scales by the substitution of the notes Mi-Fa which produces the metabole. This kind of transposition which may concern several pentatonic scales relating to a fourth-degree or a fifth-degree is especially favourable to the interpretation of alternate songs which extend to different voice registers. It causes the voices to be free to join in or to stop singing at any moment of the song with all the greater require a periodic or final move back to the starting point as will happen in traditional tonal modulation.

The melismatic technique is especially concerned with the melodic and rhythmical development. It also in cludes two main recipes: the melodic inflexion and the use of musical phones. The melodic inflexion already met with in poetic declamation and in expressive recitation consists of voice modulations which convey to the word its sonorous outline. Thus in the preceding song:Click here

Inflexion is a frequent device resorted to in folk-song whose melodic feature it helps to enrich and adorn. In some Quan Ho romances, such as the barcarole "Ngo^`i Tu+.a Ma.n Thuye^`n" (Sitting on the Barge's Rim) the delicate melodic features shaped by inflexion convey to the song an outburst of passionate feeling which seem to in crease the tossing of the waves.

The use of musical phones which add so to speak to the effect of inflexion by producing a support for the voice to rest on, as is shown with certain sustained syllables in the preceding fragment of song (tua y ho; man oi ha ha). This lorid vocalism is a real technical acquisition of the Quan Ho. The poetic structure is practically broken up on behalf of a new sound organiztion pertaining to the musical language. A lovely example of this is given by the air of the pretty bamboo already cited.

The original couplet:

Tru'c xinh tru'c mo.c sa^n ddi`nh

Anh xinh anh ddu+'ng mo^.t mi`nh cu~ng xinh.

becomes, after the addition of vocal and melismatic elements, a much more extensive sequence.

 The bearing poetry is hardly recognized through the new syllabic interlacing. Out of it has nevertheless emerged a ravishing melody which is richly ornamented and melismatic, owing to a clever choice of phonemes which not only help the free melodic development but also strengthen by their resonance the poetic emotion while introducing light and shade into musical expression. A schematic notation would often fail to convey all the expressive richness likely to be found in the interpretation of this song by a good performer. Of the quan ho like Thuy Cai, the best singer of the Ha Bac quan ho ensemble ( Ddoa`n da^n ca quan ho Ha` Ba(‘c).

The same remark may be made of this very loving song Ngu+o+`i o+i , ngu+o+`i o+? ddu+`ng ve^` ( Stay my friend, do not go ) which is built on the coupler :

Ngu+o+`i ve^` em da(.n ma^’y ho^`i

Ye^u em xin cho+’ ddu+’ng ngo^`i vo+’i ai

( You who are leaving remember what I keep relling you. If you love me avoid the company of all others. )

The simultaneous action of inflexion and the melismatic phonemes produces a perfect song in form and language endowed with a much deeper emotional content than the poetic text, the added speech sounds proving to be exceptionally rich in melodic and musical tenor.

The melismatic technique is often handled with ease and command the point that each verse of the couplet 6/8 gives by itself one and the same basic melody. An example of it is the song Hoa tho+m bu+o+m lu+o+.n ( when the flower smells good, butterflies flit around it ) .

Ye^u nhau co+?i a’o cho nhau

Ve^` nha` do^’i me qua ca^`u gio’ bay

( When in love, one gives one’s coat and then tells one’s mother hat the wind carried it away when one was crossing the bridge ) .

This poetic text develops when performed by another good quan ho artist of the Ha Bac Company, a long lyrical effusion sung twice on an exquisite melody:

(A^’y) ye^u (ma^y la` ma^y o+’ ye^u ) nhau (o^ ti`nh la` ngu+o+i ) co+?i a’o ( o^ ti`nh la` ngu+o+i co+?i a’o o+ o+ o+ o+, bo+?i ca’i duye^n ru ho+`i o+ o+i bo+?i ca’i duye^n co’ a ru ho+`i, a’o co+?i la` a’o a^’y a ) cho nhau ( a’o co+?i la` a’o a^’y a cho nhau ) .

(A^’y) ve^` (nha` na`y o+ o+ o+ ve^`) nha` (o^ ti`nh la` tha`y) me, ho?i (o^ ti`nh la` tha^y me, ho?i o+ o+ o+ bo+?i ca’i duye^n o+ ru ho+`i o^i o+i ho+~i o+ o+i bo+?i cai duye^n co a ru ho+`i , em no’i do^’i ra(`ng em ddi ) qua ca^`u (qua ca^`u la`) gio’ (o+i a` no’) bay (em ddi qua ca^u la` gio’ o+i a` no’ bay).

Quy Trang

If poetry is a crystallization of language, with a view to expressing its soul, the quan ho song brings it almost back to its elementary source. The singer gives the impression of speaking most naturally in a straightforward, inspired manner, without too much worry about conciseness or verbosity, or rather repeating his words on purpose, for a better rendering of his thought while conveying more strength to his message.

The musical phonemes of the quan ho are not picked at random. They spring from poetic feeling and emotion and aim at a picturesque as well as sonorous effect. That is to say the capacity of the literary and musical bearing of the melismatic technique. The words ti`nh (love, affection) and duye^n (grace, sympathetic attraction, happy conjuncture) return like a sentimental leitmotiv in many a lyrical song. Such expressions as ti`nh, ti'nh, tang phu ly ti`nh, which are already used in verbal poetry where they evoke the voice of musical instruments, appear in a great many quan ho songs, and are meant to reproduce an instrumental accompaniment by the moon-shaped guitar, nguye^.t. Other terms usually found in all popular songs, u xang xe^ pha`n, are former appellations for the degrees of the traditional scale and convey also an instrumental environment for the vocal performance of quan ho songs. All these phonemes often introduce so condensed and such pure melodic features that they constitute the very substance of quan ho music, to such an extent that if they were suppressed many a song would lose all its beauty and its charm.

The melismatic technique of the quan ho helps to bring about a rational demarcation between two concepts, bordering on verbal poetry and vocal music, which often blend to be conveyed by one and the same expression in other languages than Vietnamese: ca dao and dan ca. The former is concerned with florid popular rhymes pertaining to poetic declamation and its expressive variants, which keep to the text, remain in the domain of poetry and of its sonorous manifestations. The latter embodies the folk-song proper, which still draws its inspiration from poetry, but abandons the poetic mode of expression in order to open out into the sound world of music with its laws of melodic and harmonic movement (repetition, thematic treatment etc.). With a view to following its own dynamic the song literally dissects the poem into its verbal elements free to re-expose them afterwards, setting them, like so many gems in their new casket of musical values. In the quan ho songs previously analyzed, the 6/8 couplet though mingling very will with its train of melodic phonemes, always emerges pure and whole in the musical picture of which it still constitutes the inspiring principle.

Lastly the words added to the basic couplet may mot be confined to playing the role of interpolations in the literary text meant to create the musical " atmosphere ". While contributing to melodic development they often happen to comment sensibly, substantially on the poetic content. This is the case with the famous song of "the trong com drum". The 6/8 couplet in actual fact has but an incipital role, being a mere pretext for the real artistic message.

Tro^'ng co+m khe'o vo^~ ne^n bo^`ng

Mo^.t ba`y con xi't lo^.i so^ng ddi ti`m

(With a clever beat, the tro^'ng co+m drum becomes another. A flock of teal come across the river at its call).

When the recitation of the couplet is complete, the song is only half conceived, as the singer is not yet saying what he is thinking. He is now completing it and at the same time finishing his message in a lyrical outpouring, which gives free rein to his poetic and musical inspiration.. A lyricism permeated with popular verve and sprightliness:

Em nho+' thu+o+ng ai, ddo^i con ma('t a^'y lim dim, mo^.t ba`y tang ti`nh con nhe^.n o+ o+ ; a^'y ma^'y cha(ng to+ a^'y ma^'y ddi ti`m em nho+' thu+o+ng ai, duye^n no+. kha'ch tang bo^`ng.

The added words disclose the real state of the singer’s soul by asking jokingly :

Whom do you think of with half-closed eyes ? A swarm of spiders spin their webs looking for a prey. Where does this homesickness of yours come from ? Is it a sympathetic attraction sealed by fate ?

Here the musical emotion, the melodic line reaches its climax:

This musical command is all the more remarkable as the quan ho’s literary and poetic language also proves rich and pure. When it makes use of all traditional poetic rhythms, the 6/8 metre is the most frequent, but verses of 8,7,6,5 and 4 feet also build up the text of quan ho songs. The latter are apt to derive from the masterpieces in national poetry, such as the Kieu of Nguyen Du their most picturesque images and expressions, of instance the first verse of the following couplet which gives a song its name.

Sa^`u ddo^ng ca`ng la('c ca`ng dda^`y

Mo^.t nga`y dda(`ng dda(~ng coi ta`y ba thu

(The more one tests one’s ordeal, the deeper it pierces. One day seems to last three autumns).

There lies the secret of the poetic and musical language of the quan ho, rightly regarded as one of the most advanced and accomplished forms of Vietnamese traditional music. Quan ho songs are so beautiful that they readily dispense with instrumental accompaniment and preserve all their charm. Their melodies are so beautiful that they become as many finished instrumental pieces whose musical message is sufficient by itself. In both these two aspects the artistic and intellectual enjoyment is complete. All the .ore so as the quan ho can deliberately incorporate most popular airs and poems. Whether it be concerned with lullabies or boatsongs from the northern plains, possession songs, strolling singers’ ditties, mountain singsongs, traditional theatrical airs popular rhymes of all motres, the quan ho will fashion them to its image. It turns them into its own substance. By the help of extemporization its repertory keeps growing richer. And when the creation of new couplers and tunes is no longer the sole prerogative of the inhabitants of Ha Bac, all quan ho songs display a remarkable unity, to the point that they have become the embodiment of this beautiful province of Vietnamese folk-song.