Narrator

The narrator enters an inn in Wankham, thinking about the relationships between himself, Glenn Gould and Wertheimer. They meet twenty-eight years earlier in Salzburg where they are all taking Horowitz's course at the Mozarteum. They all desire to be piano virtuosos. They rent a house in Leopoldskron that is owned by a recently deceased Nazi sculptor. The narrator fears that he will never see Glenn Gould again after the course because of his friend's musical obsession. Eventually, the narrator quits playing the piano and gives his Steinway to a schoolteacher's untalented, nine-year-old daughter who ruins the instrument; this is part of the narrator's deterioration process. He studies philosophy instead which he misuses badly. He is unable to be a piano virtuoso because he meets Glenn Gould so he convinces himself that he is not an artist. The narrator has a spiritual friendship with Glenn Gould. The narrator dislikes...