HOLY APOSTLES COLLEGE AND SEMINARY

AestheticPrinciples in theMusic of Trinh Cong

SonMusic as Poetry, Music as aPainting, and Music as the

Manifesto of Love.

4/28/2015

by Van Vo

Instructed: Dr. Roger Duncan, Ph.D

PHS 671: Aesthetics

Introduction

In 2004, the second annual World Peace Music Award concert

was held in Ha Noi in order to honor Trinh Cong Son together with

five other musicians. Son was a great influential musician during

the civil war period in Vietnam. Most of people know him as a

very famous figure of the anti-war movement in this Southeast

Asian country, beginning in the mid-1960s. The concern of this

musician, however, was not merely about war, but through his

more-than-600-song, he also stretched to other fields of life,

such as: Love, Human Dignity, Death, and the Vision of a better

life for his nation. Vietnamese people call him the jongleur: the

jongleur of love, of his hometown, and of humanity.1 Son saw

1 Nguyễn Trọng Tạo, Nguyễn Thụy Kha, and Đoàn Tử Huyến (eds), Trịnh Công Sơn: Một Người Thơ Ca, Một Cõi Đi Về (Sai Gon: Nhà Xuất Bản Âm Nhạc, 2001), 13.

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things as principles of the beauty. Whether he was living in the

most tragic environment of his hometown Huế during war-time, or

living in a more peaceful place in the highlands near Đà Lạt, he

was always hopeful in the saving power of beauty. His belief was

that the beauty will save the world and his nation.2 Therefore,

his entire life of working tirelessly for the sake of the beauty

made him a true artist, a man of creativity.

Being born into a Buddhist family, growing up with a

Catholic education, and studying at a French Lyceé in Saigon,

Trinh Cong Son hence became a man of reconciling the different

polarities between Western and Eastern. In fact, his music has

the echoes of Buddhist theme of impermanence of mortal life, the

longing for eternity in Christianity, and the struggle of living

in the world as a human being, which often found in the late 20th

Existentialism. All those themes intertwined proportionately in

his music. There is not so much systematic reasoning of why and

how man exists in his songs. Yet by being able to capture many

delicate moments of life and put them to music, Son conveyed

perfectly to listeners exactly his visions and feelings. For

2 From Dostoyevsky’s favorite quote “The Beauty will save us.”2

example, if people listen to his song call “A Lullaby of Cannons

for the Night,” which begins:

Every night cannons resound in the townA street cleaner stops sweeping and listensThe cannons wake up a motherThe cannons disturb a young childAt midnight a flare shines in the mountainsEvery night cannons resound in the townA street cleaner stops sweeping and listens 3

They would not need any reasoning to know what was going on,

rather, they could easily share his perception of the panorama of

a country that was ever at war. This, according to Jacques

Maritain, made Trinh Cong Son a very typical Oriental composer,

that, “[he] looks at things; he meditates on the mystery of their

visible appearance and on the mystery of their secret life force;

he reveals both in his work, either for the pleasure of man and

the ornament of human life.”4 Son captured all these details

around him with the eyes of a poet, of a painter, and of a

jongleur singing the manifesto of love.

1. Trinh Cong Son’s Songs: Music as Poetry

3 Translation: see. John C. Schafer, “The Trịnh Công Sơn Phenomenon,” The Journal of Asian Studies 66, no. 3 (August 2007), 636.4 Jacques Maritain, The A.w. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, vol. v. 1, Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978, ©1953), 17.

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It could be unusual in our modern understanding to claim a

song as a poem. Indeed, people consider these two kinds of arts

as different from others. Trinh Cong Son’s songs, nonetheless,

are the mixture of rhythm and the chosen verses. The music and

the lyrics of his songs are non-separately blended. Therefore, it

would not be enough to either categorize his songs merely as

music or poetry. They, instead, should be seen as the notion of

mousikè in Ancient Greek culture, which was "any art over which

the Muses presided, especially music or lyric poetry."5 In

Alcibiades, Socrates saw mousikè as "the art which includes

harping and singing and treading the measure correctly."6 That,

indeed, is what in modern term today call music. However, in

other parts of the Dialogues, Plato used the term mousikè to

indicate poetry, which was "many noble words in which poets speak

concerning the actions of men."7 Listen to 'Ha Trang' (White

Summer) of Trinh Cong Son, people can easily see his poetic

language that was so perfectly bound to the melody. In fact,

5 Liddell and Scott's, An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, 7th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 520.6 Plato, Alcibiades I, 108c, at Theoi Greek Mythology,

http://www.theoi.com/Ouranios/Mousai2.html.7 Plato, Ion, 533, in the Dialogues of Plato, trans. B. Jowett (New York: Random House, 1937), 289.

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being written in the E minor scale with a very slow cadence, this

song evokes in the listeners the sense of missing a person or a

place. The lyrics of the song poetically describe the 'courtly

love' of the artist to a person who he calls Em.8 The artist,

even though was in love, looked at his lover with a very lifted-

up-mind. He had nothing to deal with any kind of sexual

attractions. Rather, he observed things as adorning objects to

embellish the beloved. Therefore, the image of her became so

noble and graceful in the minds of listeners. He transmitted his

feelings so perfectly to the song that anyone who listens to the

song would stop for a moment imagining this Em, a graceful lady

described by the artist. As the song begins,

Call forth sunlight!On your slim shoulderA shirt flutters on a distant roadSunlight passed by sorrowfuleyesThe soul filled with intoxicated happinessThe path where you returnEnclosed by cloudless sky

Call forth sunlight!To fill the evening's dreamWith fluttering white flowersSo your arms will be elongatedFurther soften tomorrow's sunYour returned footstepsWhich I failed to notice

8 It is very common it Vietnamese literature, especially in poetry,the composers use the word 'Em' to indicate their lovers. Even though the word has many different meaning, but in poetic language, it often indicates a girl or a lady who is loved by the artist.

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The traveled road through seasonsIlluminated by sunlight

Call the sunlight's name sothatIt will fade on the long river.9

This attitude toward the beloved could be considered as the

Apollonian dream, which appears in a most perfect form of human

being.10 This Apollonian manner of Trinh Cong Son's music

overcame the danger of becoming empty by its own creativity. In

fact, the image of this fine lady invokes in the listeners a

creative imagination to picture her walking in a shiny afternoon.

It is also free from any intoxications of the Dionysian manner.11

The deep feeling that the artist has toward his lover would not

lead him to any kind of blindness or any kind of bodily

satisfaction. Rather, he let himself to be immersed in a poetic

world where he can freely keep his lover and contemplate her

beauty. The poetic lyrics become a fulcrum providing a shape of

the artist's perception. And the background music added into the

song the emotional structures, which profoundly reflected the

artist's soul.

9 Translated by Mikki.10 Cf. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, Dover Thrift Editions (New York: Dover Publications, 1995), 1-5, Kindle Edition.11 Cf. Albert Hofstadter and Richard Kuhns (eds), Philosophies of Art and Beauty (New York: Random House, 1964), 496-98.

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Secondly, there is another similarity of Trinh Cong Son's

artworks with the Greek mousikè in their origins. Indeed, it

would be flawed to understand mousikè without looking at its

inspiration. It is not caused by human techniques only; rather,

it is from divinity. For, as Socrates stated, "all good poets,

epic as well as lyric, compose their beautiful poems not by art,

but because they are inspired and possessed."12 Therefore, a poet

or a musician is a man of connecting the two realms: the earthly

world and the divinity. Trinh Cong Son was very aware of this

reality. In his song 'Đời Cho Ta Thế' (Life Gives Us Such

Things), he demonstrated that the world of a poet or a musician

is an ' intermediate milieu', which is "not far from heaven,

neither too far from human destiny."13 He, therefore, should be

called a poetic musician whose 'poetic music' is an expression of

human desire toward the spiritual world. There is nostalgia, a

longing for eternity in Son's music. There are many times people

could find in his songs the words 'Quê Nhà' (homeland) or 'Nhà'

12 Plato, Ion, 534.

13 In Vietnamese, "Không xa trời và cũng không xa phận người." 7

(home).14 These words were metaphorically used to express the

sense of something being absent in life. In his song 'Còn Có Bao

Ngày' (The Left Days), the artist was able to recognize what was

absent in his life: the sense of eternity. He expressed clearly,

Đêm ta nằm bóng tối vây quanhĐêm ta nằm nghe tiếng trămnămGọi thì thầm, gọi thì thầm,gọi thì thầm...

Lying at night, I amsurrounded by darknessLying at night I heard thecall of eternity,Whispering, whispering,whispering... 15

This call is not excessively effusive nor is it too loud. Rather,

it is a whispering that only those who are really with sursum

corda, hearts lifted, can be able to recognize it. Therefore,

when there were times of confusions and distress, Trinh Cong Son

tended to return to his 'true hometown' where he can be

comforted. That was what he literally stated in the other song

call 'Đêm Thấy Ta Là Thác Đổ' (At Night Feeling Myself as a

Waterfall), that, "several times I am like a boy missing home,

14 See. John C. Schafer “Death, Buddhism, and Existentialism in the Songs of Trịnh Công Sơn,” Journal of Vietnamese Studies 2, no. 1 (Winter, 2007):8.

15 Translated by the author of this paper.8

from those towns I return."16 At this point, there is a parallel

between how Trinh Cong Son understood and what Saint Paul taught

the early Christians about eternity, that, " nostra autem

conversatio in caelis est."17 Man must return to his true

hometown in heaven where he can completely be at rest. Where

conversatio is the firmly establishes between persons and persons.

2. Trinh Cong Son's Songs: Music as a Painting.

To look at a song with a 'visual perspective' seems to be a

very abstract thing to do. It is in a sense that listeners do not

directly use their eyes to capture what the artist already put

into the matter to make it a painting. Yet there still be certain

ways in music (lyrical music) that the artist can present to the

imaginative power of listeners a beautiful picture with its

colors and splendors. In this sense people may argue with Thomas

Aquinas about his definition of beauty, that, "beauty is that

which gives pleasure when seen."18 If they took this definition

16 In Vietnamese: "Nhiều đêm bỗng như trẻ nhớ nhà, từ những phố kia tôi về."17 Philipians 3:20 (Interlinear Latin Vulgate), Kindle Edition.

18 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, q. 39, a. 8., complete Englished., trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Westminster,

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literally, they would claim that Saint Thomas excluded all other

kinds of arts that are not related to vision, which being seen.

Then what about music and poetry? This problem indeed already

appeared in the Dialogues of Plato when Socrates encountered

Hippias and discussed with him about beauty.19 The word seen of

Saint Thomas in this context, however, has a broader sense than

just merely using the eyes to observe things. That means the

capacity to use the intellect to apprehend and contemplate the

fullness of the object. Jacques Maritain clarified this idea of

Saint Thomas:

Beauty is essentially the object of intelligence, forwhat knows in the full meaning of the word is the mind,which alone is open to the infinity of being. Thenatural site of beauty is the intelligible world:thence it descends. But it falls in a way within thegrasp of the senses, since the senses in the case ofman serve the mind and can themselves rejoice inknowing: ‘the beautiful relates only to sight andhearing of all senses, because these two are maximecognoscitivi’20

MD: Christian Classics, 1981, 1948), 2:659.19 Cf. Plato, Hippias Major, 302c.20 Jacques Maritain, Art and Scholasticism, trans. J. F. Scanlan (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930), 23.

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Through his song 'Chiều Trên Quê Hương Tôi' (Evening in My Native

Land), Trinh Cong Son artistically portrays a very beautiful

'painting'. He stated,

Chiều trên quê hương tôiNắng khép cánh chia tay một ngàyVết son vàng cuối mâyTiếng chân về đó đâyChiều đi nhưng nắng vẫn cho đờiLửa bếp hồng khơi

Evening in my native land,Sun rays fold like wings at end of day,Red and gold traces at the edge of clouds,Home ward footsteps here andthere,Evening fades but some lightremains,As cooking fires start to

glow.21

People would affirm that they see a radiant landscape painting

when listening to this song. The word seen in Thomas' use,

therefore, should not be taken literally. Rather, "seeing" in

this very context has so much to do with the intellect. There are

different details described in the song, such as: the sun rays,

the fine colors of clouds, the cooking fires. Each individual

object was portrayed with its own fullness of being. Intergritas of

the things definitely can be acknowledged in these verses. There

21 Translation: see. John C. Schafer “Death, Buddhism, and Existentialism in the Songs of Trịnh Công Sơn”, 22.

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is also, on the other hand, the sense of a complete unity of the

whole panorama of a peaceful countryside. These elements cannot

be separated. All the details that the artist put into the song

have their meanings, and in fact, the purpose was to form an

overview picture. Such a harmonic compound perhaps is what Saint

Thomas would call consonantia, unity of the parts. This

observation of the artist also brings another significant

perspective in art: contemplation. By setting the whole set of a

radiant sunset view, the artist must have had many more things to

say than just giving some descriptions of landscape. There is

something that is not communicable by words; rather, listeners

would have to enter into the artist's world in order to see what

he saw. This claritas comes into the picture, therefore, not only in

a physical level but it puts people in touch with a spiritual

realm where man can participate the expression of nature.

The contemplative mode was a very unique characteristic in

the songs of Trinh Cong Son. He usually presents things in their

very normal context, yet by reflecting on those events, he find

in them the transcendent meanings which they contain. In one of

his most popular song, 'Một Cõi Đi Về' (A Place for Living and12

Returning), Trinh Cong Son begins to look at things surrounded

him as a call to look within himself.

Mây che trên đầu và nắng trênvaiĐôi chân ta đi sông còn ở lạiCon tinh yêu thương vô tìnhchợt gọiChợt thấy trong ta hiện bóngcon người.[..] Một bờ cỏ non, một bờmộng mị ngày xưa.Từng lời tà dương là lờ mộđịa,Từng lời bể sông nghe ra từ độsuối khe

Clouds overhead and sun on theshouldersI walk away, the river staysFrom the spirit of love comes anunbidden callAnd within myself a human shadowappears[...] On one side new grass, onthe other dreams of the past.Each sunset's call is also thegrave'sIn the stream one hears the callof the sea 22

Objectively, nature appears beautifully in the eyes of the

artist. It inspires the artist to write melodious songs with

gorgeous images. Subjectively, however, by encountering with

beauty, the artist also recognizes the limitations of life and

human dignity. He questions himself about the meaning of life and

recollecting his way of living. He found within himself a human

shadow.23 Is it a shadow of Platonic World of Ideas? Perhaps,

only the artist can answer for himself. In another song he asks,

22 Translation: see. John C. Schafer, “The Trịnh Công Sơn Phenomenon", 638.23 The literal translation is "blurredly I found within myself the likeness of man."

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"Who am I that still be too attached to the world? Who am I, who,

who? Who? That loves this earthly world so much?" (Tôi Ơi Đừng

Tuyệt Vọng- I Must Not Despair) The desire to discover something

beyond the earthly realm, therefore, is at the same time

connected to the overwhelming experience of encountering the

beauty. The two highest forms of arts, music and painting, impose

into the intellect the fullness images of realty. They lead the

intellect to contemplation so that beautiful forms of reality can

be retained in it.

3. Trinh Cong Son's Songs: Music as the Manifesto of Love.

One of the most significant factors that made Trinh Cong

Son's music so popular, not only in Vietnam but also in other

countries, is that he was always praising love. Even though the

artist was living in the most tragic time of the Vietnamese war,

he never ceased to love. He loves his compatriots. He loves

humanity. He loves life and what is good and desirable in life.

The fire of love within his soul urges him to speak up for human

love, through his songs. As he cried out, saying:

Hãy yêu nhau đi bên đờinguy khốn,

Love each other though life’sfilled with disaster, love each

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hãy yêu nhau đi bù đắp chotrăm năm,hãy yêu nhau đi cho ngàyquên thángdù đêm súng đạn.dù sáng mưa bom.

other to make up for life’spassing,love each other so days forgetmonths,though the night brings bullets,though the morning brings bombs,24

This kind of love overcomes the tragedy of war, poverty, and

hatred to seek for the who-ness, or the personhood, instead of the

what-ness. Despite of what would happen in the future, even death,

this artist still believed in the power of love. Obviously, one

can see the artist's tendency towards what is good and desirable.

This inclination in Thomistic tradition is called the

intellectual appetite (the will). It makes man totally apart from

among other creatures on earth. The will, so long as it possessed

the object of love, will rest and repose in that good.25 Thus,

when in love, the lover makes a big process of coming out of

himself. A true lover, therefore, could not be egoistic but

rather he or she must be altruistic. Love has not thing to deal

with self-centered. Love cares about what and who the beloved is.

What is beautiful and precious in the beloved is also what is

24 Translation: see. John C. Schafer “Death, Buddhism, and Existentialism in the Songs of Trịnh Công Sơn", 24.25 Paul J. Glenn, A Tour of the Summa (Rockford, Ill.: Tan Books, 1978), 121.

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lovable and desirable. Beauty in this approach has a close

connection to goodness. It, at the same time, relates to the

cognitive power and appetite. Because it is desirable, it,

therefore, gives pleasure when being seen, or precisely being

apprehended. Trinh Cong Son even promoted in his songs a kind of

radical love: the love for the betrayer. He wrote, "Yêu em yêu

thêm tình phụ, yêu em lòng chợt từ bi bất ngờ. [Loving you, I

love also betrayal, loving you; suddenly

loving-kindess/compassion fills my heart.]"26 This attitude

strongly testifies the artist’s belief in the power of love. Love

requires a transformation. It is not the transforming to lose the

identity but the one to re-organize or re-structure to fit the

relationship between persons. Hence, when man is fulfilling his

love, he also fulfills his identity because love actuates the

lover to seek for the common I in the beloved. Even though the

result of the artist's relationship with his lover is not what he

could completely attain, yet the transforming power of love still

made him happy. He recognized in the relationship with his

26 Translation: see. John C. Schafer “Death, Buddhism, and Existentialism in the Songs of Trịnh Công Sơn", 28.

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beloved one a unique communication, a communication of self to

self. As Martin Buber stated in his book I and Thou, "the I of man

is [also] twofold [...] the basic word I-You can only be spoken

with one's whole being."27 Man indeed can never escape from

others. We exist together as human beings, in the relationship of

our I with other-I(s). When someone is in love with someone, he or

she allows his/her I to get closer to the I of the beloved, and

gradually to be united it. This process of communicating the I is

what, in the language of Dietrich von Hildebrand, would be called

the "self-gift" as the response to the unique value of the

beloved.28 This standard of love becomes a foundation upon which

man should build up his love for others. It is a not only what

may be called Eros, which requires a possession of what is love

and desirable.29 Going beyond that level, however, the love of

ourselves must also be the love to the fulfilled-I, which we can

perceive only through the love of others that we live with.30 The

27 Martin Buber, The Scribner Library. Philosophy/religion, trans. Walter Arnold Kaufmann, vol. 243, I and Thou (New York: Charles Scribner, 1970), 53-85.28 Dietrich Von Hildebrand, The Nature of Love (South Bend, Ind.: St. Augustine, ©2009), 58-82.29 Cf. Liddell and Scott's, An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, 7th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 310.30 Robert Bretall, ed., “Works of Love,” in A Kierkegaard Anthology, trans. Lillian Swenson M. (New York: Random House, 1938), 281-323.

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true meaning or perhaps the other aspect of Eros must be re-

acknowledged. As Plato stated, "he who loves the beautiful is

called a lover because he partakes of it."31 There is a kind of

participation in the relationship between the lover and the

beloved. Trinh Cong Son, by understanding this unique

characteristic of love, he therefore builds his own philosophy of

love: that is to love without trying to possess. Furthermore,

love becomes saving power for him. As in his biography he stated,

"There are only destiny and love as we are living in this life.

Our destiny is finite while love is infinite. How can we nurture

our love so that it can save our destiny on the cross of life?"32

This manifesto of love defined how Trinh Cong Son lived his life.

That was what he believed, that, love will save the world.

Conclusion

31 Plato, Pheadrus, 249e, in the Dialogues of Plato, trans. B. Jowett (New York: Random House, 1937), 253.

32 In Vietnamese: Sống giữa đời này chỉ có thân phận và tình yêu. Thân phận thì hữu hạn. Tình yêu thì vô cùng. Chúng ta làm cách nào nuôi dưỡng tình yêu để tình yêu có thể cứu chuộc thân phận trên cây thập giá đời.

Cf.Nguyễn Trọng Tạo, Nguyễn Thụy Kha, and Đoàn Tử Huyến (eds), Trịnh Công Sơn: Một Người Thơ Ca, Một Cõi Đi Về (Sai Gon: Nhà Xuất Bản Âm Nhạc, 2001), 36.

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Trinh Cong Son's legacy is a large number of songs that

contain in them the beauty of music and poetry. His songs were

also the colorful paintings that draw a big picture of a country

that was ever at war. Yet, although living in a most tragic

wartime, this artist was still able to see the beauty of his own

country. He believed in the saving power of love. He went over

his country to continuously singing the manifesto of love,

calling people to love. Beauty and love will save the world, and

perhaps his country, that is what this artist firmly believed.

Bibliography

Nguyễn Trọng Tạo, Nguyễn Thụy Kha, and Đoàn Tử Huyến (eds). TrịnhCông Sơn: Một Người Thơ Ca, Một Cõi Đi Về. Sai Gon: Nhà Xuất Bản Âm Nhạc,2001.

Schafer , John C. The Trịnh Công Sơn Phenomenon, The Journal of AsianStudies 66, no. 3 August 2007, 636.

Schafer, John C. Death, Buddhism, and Existentialism in the Songs of Trịnh Công Sơn. Journal of Vietnamese Studies 2, no. 1. Winter, 2007.

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Maritain, Jacques, Art and Scholasticism, trans. J. F. Scanlan. NewYork: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. The Birth of Tragedy. Dover ThriftEditions. New York: Dover Publications, 1995.

Plato. the Dialogues of Plato, trans. B. Jowett . New York: Random House, 1937.

Hofstadter, Albert and Kuhns, Richard (eds). Philosophies of Artand Beauty. New York: Random House, 1964.

Hildebrand, Dietrich Von. The Nature of Love. South Bend, Ind.: St. Augustine, ©2009.

Buber, Martin. The Scribner Library. Philosophy/religion, trans. Walter Arnold Kaufmann, vol. 243, I and Thou. New York: Charles Scribner, 1970.

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