Exhibition «Hướng về thành phố xa xưa» (Two Decades of Hanoi's Tân Nhạc)

   Sheet music printed in your grandparents' day, laid open to be read: a cover drawn by a painter, the score printed inside, and a whole layer of urban taste sitting in between. Nearly three weeks at the city museum to walk through the first two decades of Hanoi's modern songwriting.

   The display brings together 102 original scores alongside artefacts and photographs of composers and singers, reconstructing how one era of music in the capital took shape. It runs within this year's Festival Thăng Long – Hà Nội.

   Tân nhạc, also called reformed music, emerged in the mid-1930s. It took Western musical language as its foundation and quickly drew in the young audiences of the time. In Hanoi, the 1938 performances by composer Nguyễn Văn Tuyên are regarded as the starting point of Vietnamese tân nhạc. Across those two decades roughly 2,000 scores were printed.

   Objects worth seeking out:

• — the sheets for «Gò Đống Đa» by Văn Cao and «Giọt mưa thu» by Đặng Thế Phong
• — the cover of «Cô hàng cà phê» in its third Tinh Hoa printing, drawn by Phi Hùng; the song was written by Canh Thân in 1948 in the resistance zone of Liên khu III
• — the sheet for «Ai về sông Tương», the first romantic song by Văn Giảng, a composer better known for his marches

   Researcher Nguyễn Trương Quý explains that combining graphic design with printed song sheets became widespread from the early 1940s. The standard publication measured 44x28 cm and folded in half, with the score printed inside and the outside given over to an artist's graphics, illustrating either the song or the singer.

   The opening drew singer Tuyết Thanh, composer Mai Trung Kiên, son of Văn Chung of the pioneering generation of Vietnamese tân nhạc, and singer Quỳnh Hoa. It also pulled in a notably young crowd curious about the musical life of that Hanoi.

   It suits anyone drawn to pre-war Vietnamese song, graphic designers, and visitors who simply want to know what the city was listening to. If you have sung «Giọt mưa thu» without ever seeing its original sheet, this is as close as you will get.