The novel's central character and narrator is Michael Holme, a professional violinist working in London as a member of the moderately successful Maggiore Quartet.

This ensemble—comprising Michael, Helen, Billy, and Piers—is at the center of Michael's life in the present. However, Michael is troubled by old wounds and unfinished business, and his relations with the other members of the Maggiore are disrupted as he battles the ghosts of his past, to whom Michael is bound in another, informal quartet: Mrs. Helen Formby, the woman who introduced the young Michael to classical music, became his first teacher, and gave him his rare Tononi violin; Carl Kaell, the formidable teacher whose demands and expectations appear to have precipitated some kind of breakdown during Michael's time as a student in Vienna; and Julia (McNicholl) Hansen, a concert pianist and the object of Michael's obsessive desire, whom he...