N MUSIC SHEETS ARE NOT JUST MUSIC PAPERS
Entering Le Duy Truong's coffee shop on Ham Nghi Street ( Hue City), many people will feel like they are lost in an old space with elegant decoration. The decorations on the wall, in addition to old books, Mr. Truong cleverly hung sheet music with covers of paintings and photos with bold artistic features from the years before 1975. "The sheet music is printed on thick A3 paper, folded in half into 4 pages with the same size as A4. Cover 1 has the title of the song, the author's name and illustrations, pages 2 - 3 are the music sheet and lyrics. Cover 4 has the name of the publisher, appendix, information about the author and related works...", Mr. Truong said.
According to many documents, Tinh Hoa Hue Publishing House (No. 121 Tran Hung Dao, Hue City, directed by Mr. Tang Duyet) was recognized as the first publishing house to print sheet music in the mid-1940s. Sheet music existed for about 30 years (1945 - 1975) with a strong vitality because music lovers often hunted for it to practice singing and playing. Others were used as gifts, especially couples often gave each other as a token of love. Meanwhile, many people, because of their passion for painting composition style or because of their idol singer printed on the cover, bought it for collection.
The music of the song "Ho Tren Nui" (composer Pho Duc Phuong) was collected by Mr. Le Duy Truong.
Hoang Son
"Each sheet music has only 4 sides, but the story written in it is very interesting. There are some pieces of music that, when published, have become songs that have lasted through the years, such as the works of musicians Ngo Thuy Mien, Van Cao... Collecting sheet music must be for someone who is passionate about music . It is also a hobby that requires diligence and perseverance because after 1975, sheet music was lost a lot due to war and preservation. The number of sheet music in Vietnam is not much left", said Mr. Truong. He collected music from Tinh Hoa Hue Publishing House, especially in the 1950s. Then Tinh Hoa Southern Publishing House, Huyen Trang Publishing House, Song Nhac Publishing House... in the 1960s.
Among the sheet music collected by Mr. Truong, the most valuable are the special sheet music because very few copies were printed. Regular sheet music can be printed up to 3,000 copies, but the special edition with the author's signature and red seal usually only prints about 30 - 50 copies. Currently, Mr. Truong has about 1,000 sheet music copies printed during the 30 years of its existence. Among them, there are many copies printed by Giai Phong Publishing House and Van Nghe Publishing House in the North with especially rare copies.
INCUBATING SOLID EXHIBITION
According to Mr. Le Duy Truong, each person who collects sheet music often has his own taste. Some people classify them by publisher, some arrange them in chronological order, and some want to collect them on a specific topic. Mr. Truong is focusing on collecting sheet music about Hue, such as songs written about Hue, singers singing about Hue (like Thai Thanh, Thanh Thuy, etc.). "Blank music about Hue is very rare and few people play it. Therefore, I have to hunt everywhere, but each year I can only collect a few satisfactory copies," he said. In addition, he also collects sheet music by composer with famous songs by Trinh Cong Son, Pham Duy, etc. Currently, he has a very valuable set of 3 volumes of Ngay Tro Ve by composer Pham Duy. He is also trying to find sheet music published by Tinh Hoa Hue Publishing House to create a complete collection.
"Few people collect sheet music, so exchanging and selling it is more difficult than other hobbies. Currently, old bookstores are almost empty of sheet music, so to buy the missing copies in the collections, I have to search on forums and social networks... Once I find it, especially the special sheet music, even though it is 5-6 times more expensive than the regular version (about 250,000 - 350,000 VND/copy), I still buy it. In Hue, there is a collector who owns a top-notch sheet music set because it is especially rare, worth up to 30-40 million VND/copy. Among them, there are sheets that I have never seen before...", Mr. Truong shared.
Le Duy Truong decorates his coffee shop with time-stained sheet music.
Hoang Son
In Hue, Le Duy Truong is known as a collector of old books with a collection of more than 20,000 books. His hobby of collecting old books also led Truong to the hobby of collecting books with handwritten notes of patriots, researchers, writers, poets, such as Huynh Thuc Khang (handwritten notes in the Voice of the People Newspaper), Hoang Phu Ngoc Tuong, Ton Nu Hy Khuong... In 2016, young collector Le Duy Truong held a solo exhibition with the theme Hue - a hundred years of books . At this exhibition, besides displaying hundreds of books about Hue, Truong made many people excited when admiring the art of arranging sheet music in a spiral shape with the implication: books will make each person's knowledge sublimate.
"Music sheets bring many emotions to viewers, because it is a deep combination of painting and music. The artist who draws the music sheet cover must feel the musical language, the story from the composer to have harmony, from the ink color to the brush strokes. In addition, the older the music sheets, the more they carry the color of time, as a witness of a period of music history, making viewers and readers feel close. There are music sheets with very high artistic value, to the point that they can be made into paintings to hang on the wall", Mr. Truong said and shared that he is currently trying to collect them with the intention of opening an exhibition to introduce to the public the interesting things about music sheets as well as spreading his passion to everyone. (continued)
Source: https://thanhnien.vn/thu-vui-suu-tam-do-doc-la-me-man-net-xua-tren-nhac-to-185240801232913281.htm
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