CWith thousand year left behind, the ca trù as a kind of artistic folkloric activity has been developed within the history of development of Hà Nội the capital of the country, originally Thăng Long – the “the Dragon Taking Off City”.

Up to the legendary reputation linking to the appearance of the ca trù was the name of Đào Thị a courtesan in the Lý Thái Tổ court (1010–1028), young woman coaxed and cajoled by the king himself, famous beautiful dancer and renowned singer, thence the other way of calling ca trù as the ả đào, literally the young woman named Đào.
However, we should try to find out the true origin of ca trù in the cửa đình songs literally “songs interpreted at the gates of the communal house” – liturgies played to worship the founder of the commune.
From the very beginning, the cửa đình songs were used by chiefs of clans and chiefs of villages during commemorative occasions to praise “The Sky” and other divinities, using music as the messenger of people’s wish. Later on, different monarchs also used the ca trù as a tool to celebrate their ancestors worshipped in imperial temples.
Beside the above legend, there was another one, this case of oral tradition too. During the dynasty of Lê, there was a young man named Đinh Lễ, self nicknamed as Nguyên Sinh, born from the Cổ Đạm village, Nghi Xuân district, Hà Tĩnh province, a liberal man from a very good family, who disdained the mandarinate, preferring only to sit down by the water stream with his musical instrument then singing and tuning up his voice with the murmur of the water fall. This living way has led him one day while wandering in the forest with his bag of food and drink in his back, to meet up with two old men, Lý Thiết Quài and Lã Động Tân. These old folk gave Nguyên Sinh a section of ngô đồng wood (known now as belonging to the family of Fimiana) together with a sheet of paper where a lute model was sketched out. The old folk then told Nguyên Sinh to make a string musical instrument, this one could have the power in helping people to get rid of evils and misfortunes. That’s what was done, and the deities fled back to the sky. Nguyên Sinh immediately began to implement the task.
With miraculous sounds of his lute, Nguyên Sinh has treated people from several diseases. One day, when he arrived in Thường Xuân in the province of Thanh Hoá, with his lute he helped a young woman named Hoa, a daughter of a local mandarin named Bạch Đình Sa, who was born mute to recover her voice. The entire family of the mandarin was exultant. The mandarin gave his daughter as wife to the young musician-curator, and the young couple began their new life in a quasi musical happiness. Nguyên Sinh created new dances with songs accompanied by sounds made by pieces of bamboo and done by the singer – his own wife – during the performance. Then, the young couple went back to Cổ Đạm the native village of the husband to live there and to make fortune over there.
A little bit later on, Nguyên Sinh met again the two celestial envoys, and his name was written in the genealogic book of deities, and all the three went to live their divinely life somewhere in the sky. Having got the news, Nguyên Sinh’s wife tried to find out her own consolation in giving dance and music lessons to village children and kept doing it until her death. A temple was built by Cổ Đạm villagers and students, the same temple was later named as Temple of the Founder Singer, or the Temple of Bạch Hoa Công Chúa (“the White Flower Princess”). The court awarded Đinh Lễ ( Nguyên Sinh) the title of Thanh Xà Đại Vương (“The Great Blue Snake King”), and the title of Mãn Đào Hoa Công chúa to Bạch Hoa (“the Eternal Peach Flower Princess”).
Unveiled later on as filed in the archives of the Lê clan (“Lê tộc gia phả” or “Genealogy of the clan Lê”) were written materials made by an intellectual named Lê Đức Mao titled “Đại nghĩ bát giáp thưởng đào giải văn” (or “Explanations and Knowledge on the ả Đào). Other archeological findings in communal houses in the Red River Delta, and especially the wood engravings of the lute called đàn đáy  dated back to XVI century, were discovered, thus bearing the stamp on the real existence of ca trù.
Although born from folkloric roots, once entered into the imperial environment, after several researches done by specialists in musicology, the ca trù had to submit to many changes and thence became a high value artistic form with well-established authority. It has been usually at use during festivals, ceremonies and also in diplomatic receptions.
After the transfer of the capital to Huế thence the lost of status as capital to Thăng Long, out of its usage for the cult of divinities, the ca trù musical wave remained the one of predilection to good education people, good condition folk, in short, honorable people dwelt and living the thirty-six old areas of the ancient metropolis.
The ca trù musical wave kept enjoying the area of Hà Nội with its own characteristics. But, beginning with the XX century, the western living style with its own entertainment forms began to stir up the old eastern city to finally giving birth to the new ca trù wave known under the name of đào rượu. New “guinguettes” mushroomed and their owners added to the Ả đào the new way of making profit: beside the true singers, they recruited other courtesans aiming only to serve the liquor to clients, thence the name of đào rượu literally “young lady serving the liquor to customers”.
In 1945, date of the Revolution which gave birth to the new democratic republic of Việt Nam, the authorities have banned the practice of đào rượu just aiming to rehabilitate the ca trù as a pure form of musical entertainment inside a new society; but, due to “leftising” trends born from any “new life”, then the furor of consecutive wars which necessarily led to some way of ascetic living style, the ca trù was in front of new difficulties. The singers and their partners – lute players tuning them during the performance – were scattered, and little by little the ca trù vanished from the social and artistic life.
Nguyễn Xuân Khoát has been the first musician to rehabilitate the ca trù and to make its artistic values widespreaded.
The professor and musicologue Trần Văn Khê, from his part, going back from France to the native country in 1976, has made tapes recording the voice of the singer Quách Thị Hồ who was then old enough but still sufficient for introducing the ca trù to different world institutions. In 1978, the UNESCO’s Musical Committee in accordance with the International Institute on Musical Research awarded Quách Thị Hồ a diplôme d’honneur for her merits in the conservation of the high artistic value musical patrimony.
The year 1977 witnessed a new resuscitation of the ca trù via the waves of the radio The Voice of Việt Nam.
In 1988, during the Traditional Musical Festival in Pyong Yang with the participation of 29 nations, the recorded tapes from the Việt Nam representative Ms. Quách Thị Hồ have got very high merit assessment.
And finally at the end of 1991, the Hà Nội ca trù club was set up, following with the birth of other small clubs working spontaneously.
In 2000, the first ca trù Festival was organized in Hà Nội with the participation of artists coming from 14 provinces and cities, among them artists who during half a century have interrupted their artistic activities.
It was not until 2002 when with the financial aid from the Ford Foundation that the Department of Artistic Performance in the Ministry of Culture could organize a two month training course during which three ca trù modalities were transferred to students.
In 2005, the first ca trù Festival was organized. In the same year, the Ministry of Culture has given the green light to the Institute of Musicology of Việt Nam to make ready the file of ca trù aiming to send to UNESCO for obtaining  the status of “Oral Intangible Heritage of Humanity”.
According to the files written in Sino Vietnamese, the ca trù possessed about 99 modalities, among these 26 were preserved and 3 were registered without acknowledgement by the above said Sino Vietnamese files.