Rare book offers clues to China's musical past

A book stored in Cambridge for the last two centuries has been identified as a rare record of early Chinese music.

The significance of the book, entitled Xian Di Pipa Pu, was recognised last month by a visiting Chinese scholar.

According to Professor Zhiwu Wu of the Xinghai Conservatory in Guangzhou, the book is a "rare volume of pre-modern Chinese musical notation".

The book was brought to England from China in the early 19th Century after surviving a Napoleonic naval skirmish....