Le Hai Dang

Source: internet

According to the Khâm định Việt sử Thông giám Cương mục (the Imperially Ordered Annotated Text Completely Reflecting the History of Viet): “In March, the first Nguyen Hoa year (1533), in reign of King Le Trang Tong, there was a man from the West named I Ne Khu coming to indoctrinate Catholicism in Ninh Cuong and Quan Anh villages, Nam Chan district and Tra Lu village, Giao Thuy district”. This is one of the earliest evidences that prove the appearance of Catholics in Vietnam. 
However, this era did not acknowledge the appearance of church music along with missionaries working freely. Not to mention that since 1630, promoting the Gospel was prohibited by law. According to a research done by To Vu, Thuy Loan, and Chi Vu authors, “from when missionaries came to Vietnam to when the French colonial attacked the Son Tra peninsula (Da Nang province), the religion as well as the church music did not have any significant influence on our country”. 
Considering documents compiled by researcher Nguyen Van Uan, it can be seen that since the end of the nineteenth century, “Western music was popular only in churches”. Truong Dinh Cu also wrote in “Discussion on Vietnamese new music”: “Vietnamese new music was actually born in the 1928-1929 period… Before that, missionaries encouraged new music through churches”.
So, Catholic music set its foot on Vietnam only after gaining the support from an important institution, which was the Church.
The church – the cultural zone for Catholic music 
The church is one of the cultural institutions that plays the center role in cultural life of Catholics. This is not only where liturgy (service of worship/mass) and religious living happen, but also where facilities of music activities are provided. In the church, “music is associated with all liturgies. It unites people who gather to worship Jesus, props up the singing of the union, highlights important parts of the liturgy and helps maintain the voice tone in every part of the ceremony” . Music does not present only in the liturgy but also beside it, that can be understood as activities happening inside the church like prayers or art performances. 
Before being indoctrinated to Vietnam in the 16th century at the earliest, following up by the appearance of the large-scale religious institution of church in the 17th century, church music, which is also understood as hymn, had reached its peak in Europe where many Catholics gathered. Thanks to the support from the West’s aristocracy and the active participation of outstanding musicians, church music united while gathering all quintessence from Western culture, including many excellent art masterpieces. Right in the Renaissance (from the 14th to the 16th century), church music created an isolate and opposite position to folk music. Since then, church music is not only limited in some typical genres but also covers a whole cultural zone (music). 
After the Nguyen dynasty signed the Nham Tuat peace treaty in 1862 which agreed to concede three Southern East provinces to the French colonial, the Giap Tuat Treaty in 1874 which acknowledged the French’s sovereignty in the Cochinchina, and the Giap Than Treaty in 1884 which accepted the protectorate of the French, a great number of large-scale Catholic buildings were built such as the Notre-Dame Basilica in Saigon (1880), Bui Chu church in Nam Dinh (1884), St. Joseph's Cathedral in Hanoi (1887), Phat Diem church in Ninh Binh (1898), and Sapa church (1895) on the base of dioceses. In Northern Vietnam, there were Hanoi, Hai Phong, Hung Hoa, Phat Diem, Vinh, Bui Chu, and Lang Son; in Southern Vietnam, there were Saigon, Quy Nhon, and Hue. This structure was inherited since 1883 when the Holy See divided the dioceses into the ‘Dang Trong’ (an area of Vietnamese southwards expansion from Gianh river during the 17th century Trịnh–Nguyễn War) and the ‘Dang Ngoai’ (the northwards expansion). The Dang Ngoai diocese included Western Dang Ngoai (Hanoi), Eastern Dang Ngoai (Hai Phong), Southern Dang Ngoai (Vinh), Central Dang Ngoai (Bui Chu), and Northern Dang Ngoai (Bac Ninh). The Dang Trong diocese included Western Dang Trong (Saigon), Eastern Dang Trong (Quy Nhon), Northern Dang Trong (Hue), and Southern Dang Trong (Nam Vang, Can Tho). This supports evidences which proved that provinces that were far from the capital still had a developed musical life. They were like satellites rotating around the center. For example, the North had Hai Phong, Nam Dinh beside Hanoi; the Central Coast had Da Nang, Quy Nhon beside Hue, and the South had My Tho, Can Tho beside Saigon. 
In 1927, the first Conservatory of Music in Indochina appeared in Vietnam, founded by Governor-General of Indochina. After three years of operation, this Conservatory closed down. It was not until 1956 that the first musical training base of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was found in both the North and the South. In Hanoi, there was originally the Vietnam School of Music (then it changed into the Hanoi National Conservatory of Music and became the Vietnam National Academy of Music until now). In Saigon, there was the Saigon National Music School (then it changed into the Saigon National Music and Dramatics School and became the Conservatory of Ho Chi Minh City). 
It can be seen that in the two periods, before 1927 and from 1930 to 1956, both the North and the South created regular music teaching institutions, which played the role of promoting, educating music of Western model that mostly depended on the churches, home schoolings, clubs, fraternity, influences from military, cinema, records, and culture exchange activities. The church provided music knowledge and ability not only to the faithful, but also to the popular. The reason is the inspiring and bringing the art to serve the Holy Church was a mission of the church. It could be inferred from Article No. 127 of Sacrosanctum Concilium, in whichthe Second Vatican Council considers that art has a special importance: “Before planning a new Epiphany for the holy art… we must put our mind into training the artists. As usual, we should start from educating the person” .
Through the church, we are exposed to many new forms of culture, styles of art and genres of music. There is a definition that could cover the large sphere of church music. It is the sacred music or “music used in liturgy”. Sacred music is comprised of the instrumental music and the vocal music (hymn). As for the instrumental music, instruments used in most compositions were the pipe organs – the church organs, later replaced by the piano, the electric keyboard, etc. Moreover, many popular musical instruments such as the violin, the cello, the guitar, the flute, and the drum gradually stepped in the country through the church’s gate while being in charge of accompanying the choir or the union in order to serve the liturgy. Vocal music played a significant role in the liturgy, the mass and sacrament, including many genres such as antiphonal, plainsong, psalm, chant, and a cappella. Moreover, there were songs adoring Mary and Jesus existing in the secularity. They are called the religious songs. 
Plainsong, sung in Latino, was popular in the early era. After the reform by Second Vatican Council in 1962, the Sacrosanctum Concilium stated “Religious singing by the faithful is to be intelligently fostered so that in devotions and sacred exercises as well as in liturgical services, the voices of the faithful may be heard, in conformity with the norms and requirements of the rubrics”. This was one of the principles that allowed the localization on the sacred music. On account of them and the participation of composers, pastors, and followers in the Catholic community, the local hymns gradually played the lead, added a huge number of pieces of music to the sacred music legacy and orientated the liturgy music activities in the church. If we categorize sacred music according to genres, there are prayers, God the Trinity, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit…; according to functions, there are marriage ceremony, requiem, meditation, indoctrination, thanksgiving, appreciation towards family, teachers, parents, life… or activities of the community or of the children; according to season, there are spring, Advent, Christmastide, Lent, Holy Week, Eastertide, gospel; according to forms there are antiphonal, plainsong, psalm… Besides, there are modernized hymn and many more pieces inspired by the religion, which are popular in the secularity. 
As we already know, the image of church has long entered the music culture in a popular way and continuously been supported. From Tiếng chuông nhà thờ - the church bell (by Nguyen Xuan Khoat), Giáo đường im bóng - the silent church (by Nguyen Thien To), Nguyện xin Mẹ rất từ bi - pray to the merciful mother (by Hung Lan), to Con quỳ lạy Chúa - I kneel to God (by Pham Duy), Cát bụi - the dust, Phúc âm - Gospel, Lời buồn thánh - the sorrow holy saying, etc (by Trinh Cong Son), Bài Thánh ca buồn - the sad hymn, Hai mùa Noel - Two Christmas seasons (by Nguyen Vu), etc, all of them have become inseparable parts in the treasure of national music culture. 
2. The pipe organ – the symbolic musical instrument of church music
The pipe organ, also known as the church organ, has engaged with the holy atmosphere of the church since its first appearance. It is an inseparable factor in the overall structure of this religious construction. As a result, in the structure of the church, beside the crosses representing the worshipped icons, there is always a place for the composer, the choir, the singer in the liturgy, and the pipe organ. 
The church organ has a massive structure with thousands of different pipes, a keyboard system having from one to seven layers (manuals), for example the six-layer Wanamaker in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania State. In the center of Broadwalk Hall, Allantic, New Jersey State, America, there is the world biggest organ which is a seven-layer with 33,000 pipes. Considering its shape, we can categorize the pipe organ as a keyboard instrument like harpsichord, piano, harmonium, electric keyboard… But considering its source of sound, it is a wind instrument like ones that the player blows into (or over) a mouthpiece to produce trilling, echoing sounds. With its gigantic form, church organ is like a huge, tremendous sound-producing factory. In Vietnam, there is a well-known pipe organ that is 136 years old in the Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica. Most churches use electric keyboard or piano instead of pipe organ these days. The world famous Rodgers digital three-layer church organ T967, blessed on June 18, 2005 on its 125th anniversary, is one of the rare cases. Before pipe organ left the historic stage, its sounds was conserved in the timbre of the alternative instruments, which is firstly the electric keyboard. Electric keyboard, also called organ in popular, actually produces its sounds through electrical energy which precisely imitates the sound of pipe organ. In its sound system, beside sounds of instrument in symphony or pop music, there is sound of church organ. Consequently, in solemn ceremonies in the church, we often hear the echoing sound of pipe organ that represents the holy music ringing in the chancel. 
Any instrument has its own symbolic value beside its musical function. Especially in significant periods, the contribution of excellent composers reinforced the internal quality of the instrument. Vice versa, the church coated the pipe organ with a layer of symbolic culture, gave it an honorable and stable position in the holy space of the chancel. The pipe organ is used during the liturgy in solos or accompaniments. “In the old days, the pipe organ replaced the group of Catholics who actively participated in and covered the listeners there like a silent and frozen audience”. The harsh elimination caused by time toward an instrument is due to many reasons. But without its own special timbre and preeminent qualities, along with contributions in music pieces by outstanding individuals, the instrument would sooner or later become history. Even though pipe organ suffered from many obstacles on its way of being secularity because of the massive scale that required many resources and space.., the extraordinary characteristics of sound and the unparalleled contribution from generations of brilliant composers have built such immortal value for this instrument. Enduring the challenge of time and the changes in culture after centuries, the timbre of pipe organ is still conserved and protected like an aesthetic standard for church music by musical compositions. 
Moreover, the regular appearance of the pipe organ in the church chancel had a hand in creating the symbolic cultural value of church music. “In the Latin Church, pipe organ is considered as the traditional wind instrument whose sound can boost the marvelous aura of the ceremonies and lift the souls up to the God in a powerful way”. This is a common acknowledgement oriented by the Second Vatican Council. It expresses the irreplaceable importance of the church organ. It is not popular in the secularity at all and comes across the time by its cultural value and special sound effect. Recently, along with the evolution of many kinds of instrument, the pipe organ has the trend of passing its voice to a worthy descendant to be the representative, which is electric keyboard. That is the reason why in the church space, although it is more convenient to use the simple electric organ, the timbre of church organ will always be the top choice for traditional hymns. Besides, the trend of secularization also features in the secularized church musical instruments such as the piano, the violin, the cello, the guitar, and the flute. From that on, the church musical legacy continues to be localized and contributes enormously to the cultural music treasure. 
Nun - the music propagator
As mentioned before, Western music emerged in Vietnam through the church, beside the private musical training institutes, the conservatories, CDs, cinemas, cultural exchanges… In disadvantaged areas, where private musical training institutes did not develop and the conservatories did not form, the church played the center role navigating the musical living. In many cases, the nuns were the music propagators, and the connection to the secularity. 
Like we have known before, musical education is highly appreciated and carried out in institutes, academies and Catholic organizations. In musical training process for priests, the Vatican Council reminded that “We should pay attention to training and practicing music in seminaries, men and women monasteries and other Catholic organizations or institutes”. In the Instruction on the sacred music and sacred liturgy by the Sacred Congregation of Rites on September 03, 1958, chapter III-6, Duty to cultivate sacred music and sacred liturgy, it is stated that “It is in the family circle that the little children are first introduced to the knowledge…, liturgical functions, particularly the Mass, as their age, and understanding enable them. Furthermore, they should begin to learn, and love the hymns sung both in the home, and in the church… Public and private schools helps develop sacred music… Every diocese has been required to have a special commission of sacred music.” Despite of changing the context, these conditions has been loosen, sometimes has led to ignorance against training in knowledge, skill, and aesthetic ability for ones carrying out the missions in seminaries. But then, there are Catholic schools which were able to maintain and appreciate musical education, like institutes of Lovers of the Holy Cross all over the country with their own music classes. Especially, Nhat Hong Center for the Blind & Visually Impaired even teaches the blind. In the framework of the church, nuns are the impulse in promoting music to secularity. While the pastors concentrate on the internal duties of the church, the nuns step into the secularity, carry out many external tasks. They become the role of brilliant, moral people who are into secularity and teach music beside many other missions. This is why in many areas that lack of instruments and facilities to implement music promotion, the churches, the monasteries, and Catholic schools afford these requirements and have close relationship with nuns. 
Conclusion
The church is an important cultural institution providing visible facilities for invisible values including existing music. From a religious establishment to center of cultural activities, the church becomes a term of a whole music zone – church music, similar with folk music, court music… not just any other genres. Through the church, Western music entered Vietnam and formed many different directions orienting cultural adaption and integration. Church music had an essential position in Western culture. After reaching its peak, it spread to other countries. The influence of church music was not limited on the inside. It is the potential factor in the magnificent music legacy of Western music. Even in some classical music compositions, which were considered to be archetype and were brought into curriculum of conservatories, there were a great number of church music compositions entering the music life through wiggly paths. So, long time ago, church music has escaped from the ritual space of the church and been popular to general public. At the same time, the corresponding development in the atheistic community continued the process of creating secular genres of music inspired by the religion. From the perspective of music language, the influence of church music is wider and deeper than that of a moral community. It sneaks into sense of aesthetic, combines with the cultural context and becomes an important component in the music infrastructure. 
Even though the conservatory is not a training facility in church music, church music becomes an essential part of the curriculum because it simulates the Western training model which conserves and maintains the classical music legacy. Subjects like Homophone and Polyphony all have natural connection with church music. The two representatives of Baroque music trend, Bach and Handel, all spent their careers honoring Catholic culture values. Especially Bach, he spent his whole life for church music, accompanying the musical instruments at churches such as St Boniface - Arnstadt, St Blasius - Muhlhausen, and St Thomas - Leipzig, Germany. He used to be the music director at three churches: St Nikolai, St Pauline, and Church of Leipzig University for 27 years and composed the immortal masterpieces like toccata, cantata, passion, oratorio, etc to worship the God.
Catholicism whose origin is from Asia was brought into Vietnam by European, so European missionaries brought along their culture, like Buddhism whose origin is from India was brought into Vietnam by Chinese… The mediums had a considerable impact toward acculturation. So it could be seen from tracking the footsteps of European missionaries that the Western-styled church music was planted on our culture soil. Then it was Vietnamese culture’s turn to affect church music by localization. Western church music in medieval times was popular in forms of the multi-part music, choir, from strict to free polyphony; trendy in genres of oratorio, cantata, motet, mass, passion… But after entering Vietnam, where the public were used with traditional folk music like musical setting on poems (hát lý), love-exchanging songs (giao duyên), chanty (hò), satirical poems performed with the accompaniment of percussion instruments (vè)… being sung with lyrics by solo singers, the church music gradually shifted to homophony in order to match with traditional senses of cultural aesthetic to survive in the planned morality community. The component that preserved definite functions was the instrumental. Before that, our instrumental and singing did not actually meet, beside some general forms of art such as classical theatre (tuồng), satirical musical theatre (chèo), modern folk opera (cải lương), surf cultural folk songs (bả trạo), shadow puppets folk songs (hát bóng rối)… or chamber music such as tally card songs in the North (ca trù), classical folk songs in the Central (ca Huế), gifted scholar styled folk songs in the South (tài tử)…Through the contact with Western music which had various forms, singing accompanied by instruments became popular. 
Catholic music added a new complexion to the national music beside traditional folk music. It could be said that the procedure of indoctrinating Catholicism started a long-lasting process along with industrialization and urbanization in the French colonial era. In the era of globalization and world economic integration, Catholicism has the global-scaled influence because it is the only religion that has the “central government” (Vatican). Catholicism itself hung on the Western culture and evolved by the localization process. It is stated in the history that “Since 1933, Saint Sulpice Seminary opened in Hanoi in order to unite resources to train pastors for Catholic Church in Vietnam. One of the unique policies of the Church is its acculturation spirit…. The pastors were the pioneers in using Vietnamese in training with sociable way of living.”. Before that, many famous painters from Indochina College of Fine Arts had applied traditional art forms, for example lacquer with images, characters full of Vietnamese culture onto Catholic works like Le Pho, Le Van De, Nguyen Gia Tri, Nguyen Tien Chung, Hoang Tich Chu, Ta Ty… So it could be seen that after centuries, Catholicism, along with Westernization, is still a trendy escalation of different aspects of a culture with incompatible features to traditional structure of cultural values. Up to now, Catholic culture is still considered to be out of tradition. For example, new music which was born a hundred years ago is still ‘new’. Western classical music legacy appeared even before many traditional forms of music like gifted scholar styled folk songs in the South (tài tử), modern folk opera (cải lương), shadow puppets folk songs (hát bóng rối) and many art forms born in the South with more than three hundred years of history. 
From the perspective of community sense and psychology, Western music which has been altering for more than a hundred years, is overcoming such changes and impacts to enter deeper in the ethnic culture.

Endnotes

1. https://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%B4ng_gi%C3%A1o_t%E1%BA%A1i_Vi%E1%BB%87t_Nam

2. http://vanhien.vn/news/Giao-luu-am-nhac-giua-Viet-Nam-va-phuong-Tay-mot-phuong-trinh-tiep-bien-39453

3. http://thanhnien.vn/van-hoa/hon-xua-dau-pho-ky-2-nhac-vien-dau-tien-tai-dong-duong-571760.html

4. Truong Dinh Cu: Discussion on Vietnamese new music, Encyclopedia Magazine (Tap chi Bach khoa), Issue No. 73 (January 15, 1960), p.91.

5. While considering the historical aspect, it could be seen that the church music appeared later than its “relative”, which is painting. According to paintings introduced by painter Le Hieu in Vietnamese Catholic Art – Follow the timeline (2014 – Dong Nai Publisher), during the missionary period from 1840 to 1885, there were many pieces of artwork created that reflected the rough path which Catholicism used to penetrate our country’s culture.

6. Episcopate of Vietnam, Committee of Holy Art: Building from lively stones, Religion Publishing House, Hanoi, 2006, p.101.

7. The first church of Vietnam is Faipo, built in Danang in 1675. It was temporarily built by wood for three days, after that, the Dang Trong area had about 300 churches with 70,000 believers. According to Charles Maybon’s description in Annam facing France and China (1847-1885) (Tri Thuc Publisher, Hanoi, 2014, p.67), “The French has a house, but we don’t know whether it is for trading or indoctrinating”. These churches were formed more because of immediate indoctrination on the spot than reaching the structure standards in order to serve the need of liturgy with the participation of music activities.

8. Of course, the ‘open’ characteristic of these cities allowed the opportunities of culture exchange itself.

9. Building from lively stones, quoted book, p.160.

10. Discussion on the sacred music, quoted book, p.119.

11. Discussion on the sacred music, quoted book, p.85.

12. Discussion on the sacred music, quoted book, p.118.

13. http://dovyha.com/thanhnhac04.shtml

14. Le Hieu: Vietnamese Catholic Fine Arts – Follow the timeline. Dong Nai Publisher, p31-32.