Several years ago, Pierre Long Tang, then a Pepperdine faculty, told me with a touch of despair that undergraduates couldn’t listen to Bruckner because his symphonies are too complex and too long for their attention span. I’d imagine they felt somewhat the same about Mahler. We live in an age of minuets and scherzos apt for TikTok, not oratorios and concertos. And certainly not symphonies from late romanticism that rack up an hour’s time on average.
Continue reading “Commute listening: Mahler’s first five symphonies”
Last week was the first time that I set foot in Central Texas, flying into Austin for archival research at several depositories in Austin and Waco. I spent two afternoons at the Briscoe Center for American History, and had a chance to visit the museum at the LBJ Presidential Library right next door.
Continue reading “Two surprises during a visit of the LBJ Library”That is, in Western-style music and not traditional music. There are many tragic stories in cải lương. For example, Chuyện Tình Lan và Điệp has been compared to the story of Shakespeare. Truth be told, I’ve never found the romance of Lan and Điệp to be like Romeo and Juliet at all (and vice versa), but it’s another discussion for another time.
Continue reading “The most Romeo-and-Juliet song in Vietnamese music”I ended my last post stating that the album Tiếng Hát Chế Linh 1 (1972) is a masterpiece of Vietnamese bolero. Not only there isn’t a single bad song, but also outstanding are at least three-quarters of the songs, including all six that Chế Linh wrote or co-wrote under the name Tú Nhi. Let me tackle one more tune from this album, partially because of the song itself and partially because of a recording by Trường Vũ that may have surpassed Chế Linh’s original recording.
Continue reading “Vietnamese bolero and the pain of love: Đoạn tái bút”
Continue reading “Vietnamese nationalism in a popular hymn about the Sacred Heart of Jesus”
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