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SCMP Reporter

Ignatius Wong Wan-chiu  started to play the piano when he was 10 years old. But his enthusiasm lasted two months. Then the summer holidays came, and there were more important things to do.

It was not until 40 years later that the lawyer, investment banker and manufacturer once again turned his attention to the keyboard. Then he started to play with increasing passion.

The songs that began rippling off the keyboard were tunes he had listened to as a boy, romantic melodies, movie themes, love songs and laments, the harmonies that dominated the Top 20 lists  in the 1950s.

'That was the golden era,' he proclaimed. As he became more fluent on the keyboard, tunes kept flashing in his mind.

'Learning to play the piano, I fell in love with them all over again,' Mr Wong, 63, recalled this week.

He grew up in wealthy splendour. His father was the famous manufacturer and philanthropist, Haking Wong,  and the family home was the only house in Hoi Ping Road, Causeway Bay.

He had always meant to return to the piano, and in his early fifties, he decided it was time to stop dithering.

Talented friends went to his home to help him play and sing. 'I collected sheet music for old piano songs,' he said. 'The piano teacher and I would play and friends would sing along.'

He had a list of 230 favourite tunes,  including crooners' classics like If I Give My Heart to You and The Loveliest Night of the Year.

Within a couple of years, Mr  Wong was elegantly tinkling out the beloved tunes of his boyhood.

With customary vigour, he set about tracking down rare copies of sheet music for the piano.  That led him to what proved to be the often complicated task of finding out who owned and controlled the copyright.

'I'd decided I wanted to publish the sheet music so people who love playing instruments could perform the songs I love,' he said.

It took him more than a decade to trace the  copyright-holders of 100 tunes he wanted to publish.

The task was so difficult, in fact, that   The Ignatius Wong Collection of Nostalgic Songs contains only 49 tunes. Two were simply too difficult to track down.

The resulting twin-volume collectors' item is a gem.

'It's the answer to a dream for nostalgia fans,' he said enthusiastically.

Many of the works are out of print. Others are very hard to find. Never have all of them been collected in print before.

Together we flick through the pages, humming pieces of half-forgotten tunes. Some have probably not been performed in public in Hong Kong for decades. Others are perennial favourites still familiar.

'I hunted down the music of songs I grew up with. But many of these tunes will live forever.'

Mr Wong then  heads off down Queens Road, Central, humming I'm in the Mood for Love.



Nostalgia buff tracks down sheet music of  crooners' classics