It’s the summer of 1934. The world is in turmoil, plagued by economic depression and the rise of political tyrannies. But in a house on Lake Lucerne, Switzerland, one of the last great pieces of Romantic music is taking shape.
The occupant of the house, Sergei Rachmaninoff, is a hopelessly out-of-date composer. The Russian-born expat pens scores in the fashion of his idol, Tchaikovsky, surrounded by a musical world that has long since moved on to more stringent and percussive works.
