The twentieth-century revival of early music unfolded in two successive movements rooted respectively in nineteenth-century antiquarianism and in rediscovery of the value of original instruments. The present volume is a collection of insights reflecting the principal concerns of the second of those revivals, focusing on early keyboards, and beginning in the 1950s. The volume and its authors acknowledge Canadian harpsichordist Kenneth Gilbert (b. 1931) as one of this revival's leaders. The content reflects international research on early keyboard music, sources, instruments, theory, editing, and discography. Considerations that echo throughout the book are the problematics of source attributions, progressive institutionalization of early music, historical instruments as agents of artistic change and education, antecedents and networks of the revival seen as a social phenomenon, the impact of historical performance and the quest for understanding style and genre. The chapters cover historical performance practice, source studies, edition, theory and form, and instrument curating and building. Among their authors are prominent figures in performance, music history, editing, instrument building and restoration, and theory, some of whom engaged with the early keyboard revival as it was happening.

Rachelle Taylor leads an international performing career and has recorded several albums of late Renaissance keyboard music. She is Adjunct Professor of Performance at McGill University and a music historian and archivist at Library and Archives Canada. Her research has been published in Belgium, Canada and the United Kingdom. She is co-editor of Networks of Music and Culture in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (2013).

Hank Knox is hailed internationally for his "colorful, kinetic performances" (All Music Guide) which "abound in vitality" (Early Music America), and performs around the globe. He studied harpsichord with Kenneth Gilbert and is a founding member of Montreal's Arion Baroque Orchestra. He is professor of harpsichord and continuo at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University. He was awarded the Thomas Binkley prize for an outstanding university collegium director by Early Music America in 2008.