Disillusioned by the emptiness of academic life, former concert pianist and musicologist Ida Hirschman Brooks learns that a wealthy, reclusive woman is, in fact, the same person she met as a twelve year old girl nearly 30 years ago. When Ida visits this wealthy woman in her mansion, she is shocked to learn that from childhood, the woman has been writing music for 30 years. Ida studies the music in an apprehension that rises to fear, learning that this woman is the greatest composer who ever lived, with a body of work unrivaled in the history of classical music—music that echoes the coming end of the world, at the end of time and human history.