The violinist Max Auerbach, after the failure of his marriage, found a position with the Lübeck City Orchestra under the direction of the young conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler. When the ardent admirer of Mahler learns of the death of the Viennese master in May 1911, he loses all sense of stability: Auerbach develops a dangerous personality disorder. He perceives a doppelgänger who instructs him to steal the orchestral score of Mahler's "Das Lied von der Erde" in Munich and to kill the conductor of the premiere, Bruno Walter.