In the summer of 1901, the German anthropologist Berthold Laufer departed for China, having been assigned by the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) to gather cultural items for the museum’s collections. In 1904, he returned to the United States with the kinds of items one expects museums to collect, such as shadow puppets, manuscripts, and pottery. But he also came back with what might have been a historic first, and an accidental one at that: stereo recordings, which preserved vocals and instruments from the same opera in separate channels…
