In the early days of the new millennium, pages of a worn and weathered original sonata manuscript, the gift of a Czech immigrant living out her final days in Queens, come into the hands of Meta Taverner, a young musicologist whose concert piano career was cut short by an injury. To Meta's eye, it appears to be an authentic eighteenth-century work; to her discerning ear, the music rendered there is commanding, hauntingly beautiful, clearly the undiscovered composition of a master. But there is no indication of who the composer might be. The gift comes with the caveat that Meta attempt to find the manuscript's true owner, a Prague friend the old woman has not heard from since the Second World War forced them apart.