Singing love Dalat

Da Lat - the city of four seasons of brilliant flowers, the dreamy, magical land is an endless source of inspiration for poetry, music, and painting. 130 years of Da Lat's formation and development (1893 - 2023), Da Lat City People's Committee has just released a collection of 130 songs about Da Lat published by Thanh Nien Publishing House.

Collection of 130 songs about Dalat

Holding the book in hand, readers are amazed at the elaborateness and value of a music anthology. It seems that all the good songs about Da Lat, spanning both breadth and depth over more than a century, have been collected and are present here. The songs that when mentioning Da Lat, the public immediately remembers: Who goes to the land of peach blossoms (Hoang Nguyen), Da Lat sunset (Minh Ky - Da Cam), Sad city (Lam Phuong), Mimosa (Tran Kiet Tuong), Da Lat wind and clouds (Pham Trong Cau - Nguyen Luong Hieu), Da Lat dawn (The Hien), Far away street (Le Quoc Thang), Lake surface (Trong Thuy)...

130 songs express every level of emotion, before nature, before the sky, the earth, before the sun, wind, clouds, rain, hills, waterfalls, grass, trees, flowers... It is the author's heart expressing his love for Da Lat. Selected and edited in the book, musician Quynh Hop confided: "Coming to, loving and being passionate about Da Lat, many musicians with full emotions have left behind musical works that linger for a long time in the hearts of music lovers and accompanied the development of the city. Present in those songs is the beauty of nature, architecture and people in the land of flowers, pine trees, lakes, waterfalls and extremely romantic and beautiful hillside streets".

Many art programs at Lam Vien Square, Da Lat

There, the range of human emotions before the beautiful nature, the vibrations between people have lasted for more than a century. The music about Dalat is melodious, gentle, passionate, full of love from the quiet coffee shops of the 20th century, gradually stepping onto the big stage of the passionate, bustling, youthful, and open festival in the early years of the 21st century. Besides the sad songs that were once "nailed" in the hearts of the audience, the Collection also contains very new works, not yet staged, not yet sung on any stage, just composed in the writing camp with the theme "Dalat 130 years of formation and development". In which, many songs have a contemporary breath with the young music genres of Pop, Pop Ballad, Hiphop - Rap, R&B, making Dalat music more rich with fresh colors. Many of the authors are very young, members of the Gen Z generation. Through each musical note and each lyric, we can see that artists and art are also secretaries of the times.

The elaborateness of the collection is not only the exact songs, but also the brief introduction about the author, the work, the circumstances of its creation, along with the emotions, lyrics, and musical ideas of the author when composing the song. 130 authors with full information about their date of birth, hometown, origin, current residence... make the reader understand more clearly, more in tune with the songs they love, contributing to increasing the value of the book.

With the song “Ai len xu hoa dao” (music and lyrics by Hoang Nguyen) loved by many people in Da Lat, in addition to the music with notes, scales, melodies printed with a portrait of the author, the public is also provided with information: “Musician Hoang Nguyen, real name Cao Tu Phuc, was born in 1932 in Quang Tri . He studied at the Hue National School and participated in the resistance war against the French in the early 50s of the 20th century in the battlefield of zone 4, then the young man left the mountains and forests for the foggy city. The trio of songs about Da Lat peach blossoms by Hoang Nguyen includes: Bai tho hoa dao, Ai len xu hoa dao, Hoa dao ngay xua, all written in the key of C major with a slow tempo. The music describes the floating mist, the undulating hills and mountains associated with beautiful memories of youth in a city with Western beauty... Without having to set foot in Da Lat, you can also feel the romantic, hazy beauty with mist, with the color of flowers, with the clouds and sky and find yourself like lost in paradise through the lyrics of "Who goes to the land of peach blossoms".

In the song “Da Lat sunset” (music and lyrics: Minh Ky - Da Cam), besides the music with each familiar note that was engraved on the flower street on Ho Tung Mau slope at one time, the collection also provides readers with valuable information: “Musician Minh Ky was born in 1930, real name is Nguyen Phuc Vinh My, is the 5th generation grandson of King Minh Mang, studied music in Quy Nhon since the age of 14, composed his first song at the age of 19 (1949). In his 45-year life and career, the musician left behind hundreds of famous songs and is always considered one of the most representative musicians of the golden music genre before 1975… When mentioning Da Lat, people cannot help but mention musician Minh Ky with the songs: Love story by Than Tho lake, Da Lat sunset, Love about the cold land. Each composition leaves an indelible mark in the hearts of music lovers and those who love the city of thousands of flowers…”.

The process of selecting, collecting images, information about 130 works of 130 authors, introducing the authors, emotions when composing each work is a process, taking a lot of effort. The dedication, responsibility, and hard work of the editors and selectors of the two musicians Quynh Hop and Ha Dinh Nguyen are clearly shown through each page of the book, making music lovers and book lovers admire. As musician Quynh Hop expressed: The collection is a beautiful panorama of Da Lat music, both familiar and strange, both calm and cheerful, both traditional and contemporary, both simple and elegant... a colorful bouquet to celebrate Da Lat's 130th birthday, to celebrate Da Lat City being recognized by UNESCO as a Creative City of Music.

It can be said that the anthology is only a part of what the authors dedicate to Da Lat, because many authors who wrote a series of songs about Da Lat that are very famous, such as Minh Ky and Hoang Nguyen, only chose one typical work. Therefore, closing the book, the most regrettable thing is that many good songs about Da Lat have been "nailed" in the hearts of the public, known to everyone but not included in the anthology, such as the songs "Love for the cold land" (Minh Ky), "Dreamy Da Lat" (Who gave you the pink cheeks... Tu Huy), "Da Lat the heroic city" (Ha Huy Hien).

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