Recently, on his personal page, composer Van Thanh Nho shared a passage expressing his feelings about "The Country's Lullaby," and mentioned that the person who first recorded the song at the Voice of Vietnam Radio in 1984 was People's Artist Thanh Hoa. The author would like to share some thoughts on one of the timeless songs about the homeland and mother in Vietnamese music.
"The Homeland's Lullaby" is a special work because the author has chosen a unique path to approach the theme of the homeland: not starting from grand symbols, but beginning with the most intimate and profound aspect of the Vietnamese soul: the mother's lullaby.
From lullabies emerges the image of the nation.
"Lullaby, mother sings lullabies, a lullaby that lasts a lifetime…" – right from the opening lines, the entire Vietnamese landscape emerges. It's not just the lullaby of a mother rocking her child to sleep, but also the memories of generations of Vietnamese people. Everyone born on this land grew up listening to lullabies. Therefore, the lullaby in this song carries the spirit of the nation's roots.
What makes "The Homeland Lullaby" even more special is the natural yet profound development of imagery in the lyrics. From the small, private space of the mother, the song gradually expands to encompass the length of history and the breadth of the nation. It's a very gentle journey of imagery development, without abruptness or forced effort, and the further it progresses, the more profound its meanings become.
The next line of the lullaby is elevated to the voice of national legend: "Mother Au Co, from ancient times, went to create heaven and earth / Lac Long Quan and his many children went to the sea." Here, the author has made a very subtle artistic transformation. The mother singing to her child is no longer a specific individual, but merges into the image of the primordial mother of our nation. This makes "mother" in the song simultaneously carry multiple layers of meaning.
Van Thanh Nho personifies the country as a mother, and the homeland is expressed through emotion. Therefore, love for the country in the song is not something distant, but like love for a mother - sacred, instinctive, and deeply rooted.
The lyrics that follow, "The blue sea, the blue sky, give me so much hope / The green forest, the green river, give me so much hope," further expand the symbolic space to nature and the reality of life. In particular, the line "A color as green as my father's shirt / So my mother can lull me to sleep in the vastness" is a beautiful, very Vietnamese image. "Father's shirt" evokes the color of soldiers' uniforms, recalling the generations who went to protect the country. But the author doesn't directly emphasize war or loss, while still maintaining the emotional flow of the lullaby.
It can be said that the lyrics of "Homeland Lullaby" are built on the intertwining of the particular and the collective, between the individual and the nation.
A folk-inspired "art song"
It's no coincidence that musician and critic Nguyen Dinh San called "The Country's Lullaby " an "artistic song." The author would like to add: "Its folk essence is strong." Nguyen Dinh San's assessment isn't simply praise; it stems from the very musical structure, the way folk material is explored and processed, and the conciseness and brevity of the lyrics.
From a structural standpoint, "The Homeland's Lullaby" is a short piece of music, consisting of two sections, each divided into two balanced and concise lines. It lacks complex developments, explosive climaxes, and the grand scale of larger vocal works. Yet, it is precisely within "The Homeland's Lullaby" that a musical space with profound cultural depth and a powerful emotional impact is created.
What's noteworthy about "The Land of Lullabies " is the harmonious blend of its two-part song structure with the skillful use of Northern Vietnamese folk elements. The song doesn't simply copy the melodies of Ca Tru or Northern Vietnamese lullabies, but rather seamlessly integrates traditional musical elements with modern song language. Therefore, listeners always feel the song is distinctly folk-like and deeply rooted in Northern Vietnamese culture.
In "The Land of Lullabies ," the approach to Ca Tru (Vietnamese traditional singing) follows the style of reciting ancient poetry, combined with Northern Vietnamese lullabies. This creates depth and elegance while also providing a soft, familiar feeling. The opening line, "Lullaby for my child, mother's lullaby, a lullaby for a lifetime…" clearly demonstrates this. The opening melody doesn't follow the conventional "singing song" approach, but is very close to the recitation of ancient poetry and lullabies that have been incorporated into Ca Tru.
Furthermore, the opening arrangement of the first recording features the traditional ceremonial drum beat, a common opening for a Ca Tru song; this drum beat continues throughout the entire piece. Combining this element with an arrangement for the Vietnam National Radio band popularized in the 1980s creates a very skillful "fusion" between tradition and modern music.
Despite its strong use of folk elements, the song maintains the logical development of a modern song. The first section primarily builds a cultural and legendary atmosphere; the music in this section is open, soft, and leans towards storytelling and epic qualities. In the second section (chorus), the emotions shift towards reality and idealism; the melody develops further, becoming more "free," but without disrupting the overall folk essence. This is a deliberate act of restraint.
Restraint is also present in the work in many aspects such as restraint in structure, restraint in materials, restraint in climax, and restraint in performance techniques. And this is precisely what makes "The Country's Lullaby " resemble an "art song".
The journey of over 40 years of "The Land of Lullabies"
In a moving post on his personal page, composer Van Thanh Nho recounted the more than four-decade journey of "The Country's Lullaby" and the first artist who brought the song to life – People's Artist Thanh Hoa. In the composer's recollections, the song was a bold experiment. He didn't follow the familiar structure of patriotic songs at the time, but instead sought "a different source": a mother's lullaby, the essence of traditional Vietnamese folk singing (ca trù), and the profound echoes of national culture.
Therefore, composer Van Thanh Nho believes that "The Homeland's Lullaby" is a difficult song to sing. The difficulty lies not in technique or pitch, but in "emotion," according to him: "There are phrases that must be slightly off-key, like a sigh. There are words that must be half real, half dreamlike. Singing too straight will lose its soul. But if you let it go loose, it will sound off-key."
According to Van Thanh Nho, the first person to cross that "fine line" was Thanh Hoa. He recalled: "She emphasized each phrase like a female singer tapping a rhythm stick. The 'à ơi' sounds, the melodic embellishments, sounded like a gentle drizzle of Northern Vietnam." For him, it was no longer simply performing a song, but the artist's "transformation" into the cultural spirit that the song carried.
"A musician's life is like sowing seeds. Some seeds sprout very quickly. But some seeds have to lie in the soil for a long time, absorbing the rain, sun, joys, and sorrows of time before they become trees," shared musician Van Thanh Ngo, and according to him, the song "Homeland Lullaby " is "one such seed," and Thanh Hoa is the one who "quietly kept that seed from withering" for over 40 years.
Responding to those comments, Thanh Hoa said she not only "thanked" but also "was grateful" to Van Thanh Nho for trusting her to perform the song from the very beginning. The female artist recounted that she had taken " Homeland Lullaby " to many places around the world to sing for the Vietnamese diaspora. Once, performing in Cuba, the musicians exclaimed, "Vietnamese music is so beautiful!" and joined in the lullaby. But perhaps the memory that stands out most is a New Year's Eve performance for the Vietnamese community in Bulgaria: "While singing a lullaby to my child ... I heard the sound of choked sobs."
One thing that becomes apparent upon listening to the original recording is that the simplicity, naturalness, gentleness, and closeness to folk music seem to diminish in later versions. This creates a gap in musical aesthetics, but also reflects the flow of time and the enduring vitality of the work. Perhaps it is precisely because of the profound resonance between the composer and the original performer that "The Country's Lullaby" has transcended the boundaries of a song to become a musical memory for many generations of Vietnamese people – like a lullaby that continues to quietly resonate in the soul of the nation.
Source: https://danviet.vn/khi-to-quoc-cat-len-tu-tieng-me-ru-d1429034.html
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