CPS: Let music be a bridge to cosmopolitanism
“Are you in a hurry? If you’re busy, say so now. Otherwise, it’s easy to lose track of time here.” As you walk into the Classical Palace Society, a bastion of vinyl celebration in Taipei’s Beitou District, in a house that was originally a private residence, the busy clamor of the outside world quickly fades away. Its comfortable chairs all face the stereo system. This is one of Taiwan’s few classical music teahouses. Customers here can’t loudly chat or take photos. Rather they must give their time and attention to the “palace master” Wang Hsinkai, and enjoy a rare stretch of time without Facebook. No updates can disturb one’s time with the music.
Occupying a special place within the world of Taiwan’s vinyl aficionados, CPS is a center for musical exchange with an emphasis on researching sound and preserving culture. Wang, who holds a doctorate in history, is a great music lover. For more than 20 years he has immersed himself in the world of classical music. It was his fate to encounter the charms of the unique sounds of vinyl records during his doctoral studies. Once he caught the vinyl bug, he has never lost it.
As far as Wang is concerned, music is both a source of entertainment and a bridge to different eras. He takes an historian’s approach to vinyl: “The preservation of music is a vital endeavor. The power of the music differs depending on the condition of the turntable and the audio equipment.” Furthermore, there are analogies to the study of history. Wang is always considering how to recreate reality with materials at hand. There is no end to his quest.
Unlike most vinyl album dealers who go abroad to buy in bulk at the lowest price, whenever Wang goes overseas to purchase records, he only buys albums that he truly likes. Because he’s always so anxious to take his haul back to Taiwan to listen to, he won’t ship them back by sea. Instead, he brings them back with his luggage in business class.
This operational MO seems to run counter to conventional business logic, yet Wang proudly says, “I’ve discovered that I’m pretty persuasive. By sharing, I’m able to get more people to like these recordings. It’s a happy cycle.” Just as sounds cut into vinyl can only be played back with the proper equipment, it is only through explanation and sharing that Wang can bring an understanding of the essential value of music to more people.
Although Wang is very familiar with vinyl records, he isn’t a fundamentalist or zealot about them. “They’re just a means of reproducing the music. There are terrible-sounding vinyl records and good-sounding CDs.” But ultimately, he does prefer the analog sound of vinyl. “The most interesting thing about the analog world is that it is limitless. It’s like ‘aura’ as described by Walter Benjamin. We ought to consider why technology is constantly improving, but aura is becoming weaker and weaker.”
When it comes to the revival of interest in vinyl in recent years, Wang believes that what’s important isn’t the move backwards in terms of the quality of playback equipment. Rather it’s providing a means for people to enter the representational world behind the culture. Before CDs first appeared in 1982, there existed a huge quantity of beautiful music, much of which is not available in a digital format. Via vinyl recordings, the eras of artists or bands such as the Beatles, Li Tai-hsiang, or Johannes Brahms unfold before us, as people listen, gain understanding, and become immersed and captivated, and their lives grow richer and more interesting.
“The East Wind isn’t blowing. March’s catkins aren’t flying away….” Wang plays Li Tai-hsiang’s song “The Mistake.” Through Li’s graceful tenor voice, listeners seemingly get carried off by a poet to a small city south of the Yangtze River. It turns out that voices don’t just appeal to our sense of hearing. They seem almost able to conjure the look of another era in three dimensions.
Vinyl recordings of the Soviet conductor Veronika Borisovna Dudarova are quite rare.