Anyone curious about the phenomenal growth of early music in the last decades of the 20th century is bound to run across the name David Munrow. In his short but ebullient career, just nine years, the English musician, scholar, and entrepreneur arguably did more than anyone to create the early-music scene we know today.

‘That raises the question of what we’re doing when we study all those treatises and try to play like Couperin. Probably not everybody sounded like Couperin in Couperin’s day, or wanted to. And maybe we don’t actually want to sound like Couperin, either — we want to sound like a plausible, tasteful, expressive but individual performer.’

In 18th- and 19th-century Europe (and colonial culture in the Americas), dancing was used to make social connections and impress members of one’s class. ‘Dance and Sociability’ offers detailed descriptions of the social context for European dance among the upper classes during this period, including a thought-provoking article on how to define “grace.”

Gabriela Guadalajara is perhaps NYC’s only luthier who works exclusively on period instruments. In a brilliantly devised partnership, she is helping bring Baroque instrument-making techniques to Latin America.