After 210 years of silence, this gives us the chance to learn more about Chinese culture and music
- Jian Yang
An obscure book, which was stored in Cambridge after travelling to Britain via a Hornblower-style Napoleonic naval adventure, has been identified centuries later as an exceptionally rare document of early Chinese music.
According to experts in China, the small volume of musical scores may well be unique, and is a priceless resource for anyone interested in the country’s pre-modern musical heritage, for which very little of the original literature survives.
For the last 210 years, it has been kept at St John’s College, University of Cambridge, but its value and importance were only realised last month, when a visiting Chinese scholar called Dr Jian Yang was advised by an academic colleague that he might want to look at “that odd little book” in the College library.
Yang immediately realised its significance for Chinese music, but further research then revealed that it had reached Cambridge only after surviving the Napoleonic naval engagement known as the Battle of Pulo Aura.
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Image: The book is a very rare volume of Gongche notation, printed in China around 1770
Credit: The Master and Fellows of St John's College, Cambridge
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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