So 20 friends showed up on Monday just before 8 p.m., drank a little wine, and gathered close around Ashley Bathgate, a cellist closely associated with the Bang on a Can circle. The music was less than two years old, but the spirit was retro. Before the rise of the urban bourgeoisie and then recordings, and the concomitant decline of amateur performance, this was how music lived: in homes, in front of small groups. No stage, no dimmed lights, nowhere to hide for anyone.

The practice hasn’t died out completely. The company Groupmuse has made a specialty of providing small ensembles that arrive at your place to play Mozart or Brahms. And people who fund artists often host them, too: I once heard a quartet by Andrew Norman in the Dumbo loft of new-music patrons.

But “House Music,” conceived for this and only this situation, particularly calls into question the conventions of place and etiquette that classical music largely takes for granted. For me, who hadn’t played impresario since putting on nursery-school puppet shows for my parents, it brought up the logistical, ethical, even emotional demands that arise from presenting while writing. (Throwing a party always provokes anxiety, doesn’t it?)

Like any journalist, but even more so, critics balance learning about their subjects with remaining well apart from them. It’s a profession that thrives on a kind of passionate distance. It can be hard enough to feel comfortable reviewing an artist after an interview on neutral ground. So to let one into my home?