Pham Duy - Legacy

Legacy

Professor Vu Duc Vuong, a director at Hoa Sen University, said that Pham Duy was Vietnam's most important musician of the 20th century, and compared him favorably to Nguyen Du, Ho Xuan Huong, and Xuan Dieu. He is considered one of the most prolific and varied musicians of modern Vietnamese music, as well as one of those who molded it from its infancy. Generations of Vietnamese grew up memorizing many of his songs and many singers gained fame performing his works, most notably his sister-in-law Thai Thanh.

Ethnomusicologist Jason Gibbs described Pham Duy as "a writer of undeniable sensitivity and created works that Vietnamese will remember for hundreds of years. There is a remarkable directness, honesty and depth of feeling in his lyrics, during a time when many Vietnamese creative figures had to be guarded in their expression."

In the last years of his life, he campaigned unsuccessfully to have the entire oeuvre of his works, excepting those that "the government would deem inappropriate", to freely circulate in Vietnam again. Among his strongest advocates are renowned musicologist Trần Văn Khê, historian Dương Trung Quốc, and researcher Nguyễn Đắc Xuân, who wanted the government to allow, at minimum, his song cycles Con đường cái quan (The Mandarin Road) and Mẹ Việt Nam (Mother Vietnam), particularly its concluding song "Việt Nam Việt Nam". The two song cycles, according to Khê, are "masterpieces deserving to be disseminated across the whole country because of their true artistic qualities". With these two cycles, Pham Duy "talked about a totally unified Vietnam, painted a picture of Vietnam complete geographically and culturally, from the breadth of its history to the depth of its soul, from its philosophy to its outlook on life."

After his music was banned in Vietnam for more than 30 years, he and his music were considered to have been forgotten by the newer generations. However, according to the musician Tuấn Khanh, the outpouring of reaction on social media before and after his death clearly showed that his name is not so easily forgotten.