Der Klavierschüler

The genius of the century and the bar pianist

When Lea Singer discovers unpublished letters from Vladimir Horowitz to a young Swiss man, she uncovers the story of a hidden love: Nico Kaufmann was Horowitz's first piano student in 1937, and the men experienced an amour fou for which Horowitz risked his career and his marriage to Toscanini's daughter Wanda. Fifty years later, Nico Kaufmann, now a bar pianist, tells a stranger about this love and its darker sides. He leads the stranger to the luxury hotels where Horowitz lived his passion with him in secret for two years, and ever closer to the burning questions: How much courage does love demand? And what happens to the one who denies his desire?..