In a dusty, turn-of-the-century Catalan village, the bequest of a cello bow sets young Feliu Delargo on an unlikely path. When a local landowner's wrath threatens his family, the Spanish bow leads Feliu to anarchist Barcelona, then on to the court in Madrid, where a music master's daughter gives him his first lessons in the art of love. There he meets up with the charming and eccentric piano prodigy Justo Al-Cerraz and begins the lifelong friendship and rivalry that will orchestrate a tumultuous course for them both. As a war-torn world careens toward catastrophe, they make splendid music together and clash over women, politics, and almost everything else. Then Aviva, an Italian violinist with a haunted past, enters their lives, and Feliu and Justo embark upon their final and most dangerous collaboration.
