In the days before the first performance of his Ninth Symphony, Beethoven needs help with copying the manuscript, so a promising student of composition, Anna Holtz, is sent to assist him. During the next two years, the final ones of Beethoven's life, Anna provides assistance to the deaf, temperamental, ailing man. In return, he tutors her in composition and explains to her the ideas and principles of Romanticism. Pushed away by Beethoven's derision of her work, Anna ultimately returns to find him near death.
