When Italian musician Giacomo Carissimi hears about Up-time music in Grantville he sets off across the Alps to see and hear these wonders. Nothing will keep him from his dream of learning the new music and seeing new instruments, not even warring militias and the threats of plague. He shares the trek and what he finds in a series of heartfelt letters and several short stories. These stories and the accompanying nonfiction essays were originally published in The Grantville Gazette.