Photo: composers Phạm Tuyên, Hoàng Vân, and Thuận Yến during the ceremony presenting three songs offered to the Vietnam National University, Hanoi on February 9, 2006.
Photo credit: Bùi Tuấn.
Vietnam National University, Hanoi is one of the oldest and most symbolic academic institutions of modern Vietnam. Its origins date back to 1906 with the founding of the Indochina University, the first university established by the French administration in Indochina, which laid the foundations of the modern university model on Vietnamese soil.
Through the many institutional transformations imposed by history — from Indochina University to the National University of Vietnam, then to Hanoi General University, before the refounding of Vietnam National University, Hanoi in 1993 — the institution has maintained an intellectual continuity spanning more than a century. In Vietnamese cultural and scientific life, it is not merely a place of education; it embodies a living memory, a space where the history of the country’s modern higher education is transmitted and renewed from generation to generation.
In 2006, on the occasion of the centenary of the Indochina University – Hanoi General University – Vietnam National University, Hanoi tradition, Hoàng Vân composed Hymn of the National University of Hanoi as an official work dedicated to the institution.
It was the second song by Hoàng Vân to become a traditional university anthem, following So that the tree of life is always green (Vì cây đời xanh tươi, 1986), written for the institution’s eightieth anniversary, when it was still known as Hanoi General University.
This circumstance carries particular significance. Within the entirety of Hoàng Vân’s oeuvre, very few educational institutions received two traditional songs from him separated by twenty years. This testifies both to the enduring bond between the composer and Vietnam’s most emblematic academic space, and to the profound affinity he felt with the academic ideal understood as a foundation of national life.
What immediately strikes the listener in Hymn of the National University of Hanoi is the way Hoàng Vân approaches the university theme. Whereas most institutional songs oscillate between two poles — either rigid solemnity confined to ceremonial formality, or direct exaltation of youth through conventional formulas — Hoàng Vân chooses a more balanced path. The work takes the form of a true “march of companionship”: it possesses the collective momentum of forward movement while preserving a lyrical inwardness without which no genuine academic space can exist.
From the opening lines, the musical imagination is established through deeply symbolic imagery: “A forest of flowers competing in colors, a blue sky where intelligence blossoms.” Here, knowledge appears neither as a pedagogical slogan nor as a dry abstraction; it is conceived as an organic process of growth. The connection between the natural image and the flourishing of intelligence opens a deeper meaning: academic life is perceived as a continuous force of national culture, like an eternally renewing springtime.
From this poetic foundation, the work gradually broadens its historical scope. The lines evoking “a hundred years of tradition” are not merely commemorative references; they summon the entire process of the formation of modern Vietnamese higher education, from the Indochina University of 1906 to Vietnam National University, Hanoi at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Within this continuity, teachers and students are not merely actors of the present: they become links in an unbroken chain of historical transmission.
Thus, the ideological center of the anthem does not lie in pride directed toward the past, but in the aspiration to continue the work. This is clearly reflected in its musical organization. The piece adopts an expanded ternary form typical of Hoàng Vân’s late ceremonial works, yet treated with remarkable flexibility. The opening establishes solemn clarity through balanced phrases developed primarily by stepwise motion, creating an impression of stability without heaviness. This restraint is deliberate: it avoids excessive dramatization in order to reserve its energy for a gradual expansion toward the center.
As the developmental section unfolds, the musical space broadens perceptibly. Melodic peaks gradually rise higher, intervals open more widely, especially on key words such as “intelligence,” “devotion,” and “Vietnam.” This is a characteristic procedure of Hoàng Vân: transforming melodic climax into semantic emphasis, so that the idea imprints itself through musical form rather than verbal rhetoric. Because of this, the anthem preserves intellectual dignity and inward expressive strength without resorting to demonstrative affirmation.
The harmonic language likewise reveals a fully mature style of writing. Although grounded in a luminous major tonality, the work avoids establishing its tonic too quickly. Many phrases begin in suspension, pass through secondary dominants and subdominant expansions before resolving into perfect cadences. This “deferred resolution” gives the music a constant sense of forward orientation — an ideal image of a university inheriting a century of history while still remaining in a state of becoming. In passages devoted to tradition and dedication, the prolonged expansion of the subdominant creates an open, serene yet profound light, resembling a space of thought continuously expanding.
The overall form thus ceases to function as a simple strophic song and instead becomes a vast developmental arc. The opening theme returns in the final section with greater brightness and reinforced harmonic grounding, producing the effect of a transformed return, a reappearance in a state of higher maturity. This technique, closely related to miniature symphonic thinking, belongs to the style of Hoàng Vân’s late major works.
Even the rhythm contributes to the identity of the piece. Although written in 4/4 at a moderate tempo, the music avoids the heavily squared phrasing characteristic of the classical ceremonial march. Instead, it introduces slight flexibility into the subdivision of durations, giving the musical flow a sense of shared progression. This is not a parade, but the common stride of an intellectual community advancing through inner strength.
Within this progression, the line “Always ready to devote ourselves” does not sound like a command, but rather like a discreet profession of faith by intellectuals toward the nation. One of the most subtle moments occurs when Hoàng Vân places the national image at the emotional summit: “The two words ‘Vietnam’ shine brightly.” This is not an imposed declaration, but the natural culmination of the entire musical process. After passing through images of knowledge, creativity, youth, and tradition, the music comes to rest on “Vietnam” as upon a necessary destination. The academic ideal here directly joins civic responsibility, according to the idea that knowledge finds its truest meaning only when it illuminates national life.
Compared with So That the Tree of Life Remains Forever Green, composed in 1986 for Hanoi General University, this anthem reveals both continuity of thought and a noticeable evolution. While the 1986 work emphasized intellectual growth and vitality, Hymn of the National University of Hanoi expands this vision toward historical consciousness and the responsibility of transmission. One celebrates the sap of knowledge; the other affirms the historical awareness of an intelligence that has reached maturity. Separated by twenty years, these two works together form a double portrait of the modern Vietnamese university.
It is precisely through these discreet technical refinements that the anthem transcends its commemorative function. It does not merely mark a historical anniversary of Vietnam National University, Hanoi; it constructs an autonomous musical space — solemn without dryness, luminous without superficiality, collective without sacrificing personal emotion.
For this reason, the work can permanently inhabit the institution’s academic memory as a musical emblem possessing both ceremonial value and full artistic autonomy. In this balance appears one of Hoàng Vân’s greatest artistic qualities: the ability to transform a functional commission into a lasting musical architecture in which historical value and aesthetic value coexist in complete unity.
The work also bears the titles Common march for teachers and students and Students and Song of Youth.
Albums: Album, Children's and youth songs Album, Album Songs for professions, Songs for Hanoi, Works, Songs, Songs for children and youth, Other type's songs, Listening,
Year of composition: 2006
A forest of flowers competes in fragrance and color,
A blue sky where intelligence rises high,
A heroic song makes the sacred soul of mountains and rivers shine.
Every step carries the joy of creation.
Spring brings us wonderful ideas,
Leads us toward a great love,
Upon our sacred brows
Shine the two words “Vietnam.”
Our beloved university allows us to dedicate our youth to life,
Always ready to devote ourselves willingly,
Upholding proudly a century-old tradition:
Vietnam National University, Hanoi.
Spring brings us wonderful ideals,
Leads us toward a great love,
Upon our sacred brows
Shine the two words “Vietnam.”
Spring brings us wonderful ideals,
Leads us toward a great love,
Upon our sacred brows
Forever shines Vietnam National University, Hanoi.
Our beloved university allows us to dedicate our youth to life,
Always ready to devote ourselves willingly,
Upholding proudly a century-old tradition:
Vietnam National University… Hanoi.
in the process of identification