In a small German town on the banks of the Rhine, a child is born into a family of Kraft musicians. The first, still unclear perception of the surrounding world, the warmth of maternal hands, the gentle sound of a voice, the sensation of light, darkness, thousands of different sounds ... The ringing of a spring drop, the sound of bells, the singing of birds - all delight little Christoph. He hears music everywhere, because for a true musician, "all that exists is music - you just need to hear it." Unbeknownst to himself, the boy, playing, comes up with his own tunes. Christophe's grandfather records and processes his compositions. And now the musical note “Joys of Childhood” is ready with a dedication to His Highness the Duke. So at the age of seven, Christoph becomes a court musician and begins to earn his first money for performances.
Not everything is smooth in Christoph's life. Father drinks a lot of family money. Mother is forced to moonlight as a cook in wealthy homes. The family has three children, Christophe is the eldest. He had already managed to face injustice when he realized that they were poor, and the rich despised and laughed at their ignorance and bad manners. At eleven years old, to help his family, the boy begins to play the second violin in the orchestra, where his father and grandfather play, gives lessons to spoiled rich girls, continues to perform at ducal concerts, he has no friends, he sees very little warmth and sympathy at home and therefore gradually turns into a closed proud teenager who does not want to become a "little burgher, an honest German." The only consolation of the boy is conversations with his grandfather and uncle Gottfried, a wandering merchant who sometimes visits his sister, Christoph's mother. It was grandfather who first noticed Christoph's musical gift and supported it, while his uncle revealed to the boy the truth that “music should be modest and truthful” and express “real, not fake feelings”. But grandfather dies, and uncle rarely visits them, and Christoph is terribly lonely.
Family on the verge of poverty. The father drinks the last savings. In desperation, Christoph and his mother are forced to ask the duke to give the money earned by his father to his son. However, soon these funds are running out: an eternally drunk father behaves disgustingly even during concerts, and the duke refuses him a place. Christoph writes custom-made music for the official palace festivals. "The very source of his life and joy is poisoned." But deep down he hopes for victory, dreams of a great future, of happiness, friendship and love.
In the meantime, his dreams will not come true. Acquainted with Otto Diener, Christoph thinks that he finally found a friend. But Otto’s good manners and caution are alien to the freedom-loving, unbridled Christoph, and they part. The first youthful feeling also brings Christophe disappointment: he falls in love with a girl from a noble family, but they immediately indicate the difference in their position. A new blow - Christophe's father dies. The family is forced to move to a more modest home. In a new place, Christoph meets Sabina, a young mistress of a haberdashery shop, and love arises between them. The unexpected death of Sabina leaves a deep wound in the youth’s soul. He meets the seamstress Ada, but she is cheating on him with his younger brother. Christoph is left alone again.
He is at a crossroads. The words of old uncle Gottfried - “The main thing is not to tire of wanting and living” - help Christophe spread his wings and as if to throw off “yesterday’s already dead skin in which he was suffocating - his former soul.” From now on, he belongs only to himself, "finally he is not the prey of life, but his master!" A new, unknown force awakens in a young man. All his previous works are “warm water, caricatured-ridiculous nonsense”. He is not only dissatisfied with himself; he hears false notes in the works of the pillars of music. Favorite German songs and songs become for him "a flood of vulgar tenderness, vulgar excitement, vulgar sadness, vulgar poetry ...". Christophe does not hide the feelings overwhelming him and publicly declares them. He writes new music, seeks to “express living passions, create living images”, investing in his works “wild and tart sensuality”. "With the magnificent audacity of youth," he believes that "we must do everything anew and redo it." But - a complete failure. People are not ready to perceive his new, innovative music. Christophe writes articles in a local magazine, where he criticizes everyone and everything, both composers and musicians. Thus he makes himself many enemies: the Duke expels him from service; the families where he gives lessons refuse him; the whole city turns away from him.
Christoph suffocates in the stuffy atmosphere of a provincial burgher town. He meets a young French actress, and her Gallic liveliness, musicality and sense of humor make him think of going to France, to Paris. Christoph can not decide to leave his mother, but the case decides for him. At a village festival, he quarrels with soldiers, the quarrel ends with a general fight, three soldiers are injured. Christophe is forced to flee to France: in Germany a criminal case is being brought against him.
Paris greets Christoph unfriendly. A dirty, bustling city, so unlike licked, ordered German cities. Friends from Germany turned away from the musician. With difficulty, he manages to find a job - private lessons, processing the works of famous composers for a music publishing house. Gradually, Christoph notes that French society is no better than German. Everything is rotten through and through. Politics is the subject of speculation by clever and arrogant adventurers. The leaders of various parties, including the socialist one, skillfully cover their low, selfish interests with loud phrases. The press is false and corrupt. It is not the works of art that are created, but the goods are fabricated for the sake of the perverted tastes of the fed up bourgeois. Sick, divorced from the people, from real life, art is slowly dying. Like in his homeland, in Paris, Jean-Christophe is not just watching. His lively, active nature makes him intervene in everything, openly express his indignation. He sees right through his falsehood and mediocrity. Christophe is poor, starving, seriously ill, but does not give up. Not worrying about whether his music will be heard or not, he enthusiastically works, creates a symphonic picture “David” on a biblical story, but the audience booes it.
After illness, Christoph suddenly feels updated. He begins to understand the unique charm of Paris, feels an irresistible need to find a Frenchman, "whom he could love for the sake of his love for France."
Christophe's friend becomes Olivier Jeanin, a young poet who has long admired Christoph's music and himself from afar. Friends rent an apartment together. The trembling and painful Olivier "was directly created for Christophe." “They enriched each other. Everyone contributed - they were the moral treasures of their peoples. ” Under the influence of Olivier, Christophe suddenly opens up the "indestructible granite block of France." The house in which friends live, as if in miniature, represents various social strata of society. Despite the roof that unites everyone, the residents are aloof from each other due to moral and religious prejudices. Christoph, through his music, indestructible optimism and sincere participation, makes a breach in the wall of alienation, and so dissimilar people get closer and begin to help each other.
Through the efforts of Olivier, Christophe suddenly comes to fame. The press praises him, he becomes a fashionable composer, secular society opens its doors to him. Christoph eagerly goes to dinner parties, “to replenish the supplies that life supplies him with - a collection of human looks and gestures, shades of voice, in a word, material, - shapes, sounds, colors - the artist needs for his palette.” At one of these dinners, his friend Olivier falls in love with young Jacqueline Aange. Christophe is so preoccupied with the device of his friend’s happiness that he personally intercedes for his lovers in front of Jacqueline’s father, although he realizes that, having married, Olivier will no longer belong entirely to him.
Indeed, Olivier is moving away from Christophe. The newlyweds leave for the province, where Olivier teaches at the college. He is obsessed with family happiness, he is not up to Christoph. Jacqueline receives a large inheritance, and the couple return to Paris. They have a son, but there is no previous understanding. Jacqueline is gradually turning into an empty socialite, throwing money to the right and left. She has a lover, for whom she eventually abandons her husband and child. Olivier closes in his grief. He is still friendly with Christoph, but unable to live with him under one roof, as before. Passing the boy to the education of their mutual friend, Olivier rents an apartment near his son and Christoph.
Christophe meets the revolutionary workers. He does not think, "with them or against them." He likes to meet and argue with these people. "And in the heat of the argument it happened that Christoph, seized with passion, turned out to be a much more revolutionary than the rest." He is outraged by any injustice, "passions spin his head." On May 1, he sets off with his new friends for a demonstration and drags Olivier, who has not yet become stronger after his illness, with him. The crowd shares friends. Christoph throws himself into a fight with the police and, defending himself, pierces one of them with his own saber. Intoxicated by the battle, he "sings a revolutionary song loudly." Olivier, trampled by the crowd, dies.
Christoph forced to flee to Switzerland. He expects Olivier to come to him, but instead receives a letter informing him of the tragic death of a friend. Shaken, almost insane, “like a wounded beast,” he gets to the town where one of the admirers of his talent, Dr. Brown, lives. Christophe locked himself in the room provided to him, wanting only one thing - "to be buried with a friend." Music becomes unbearable for him.
Gradually, Christophe comes back to life: playing the piano, and then begins to write music. Through the efforts of Brown, he finds students and gives lessons. Between him and the wife of Dr. Anna, love breaks out. Both Christoph and Anna, a woman who believes deeply, are hard on experiencing their passion and betrayal of a friend and husband. Unable to cut this knot, lovers try to commit suicide. After an unsuccessful suicide attempt, Anna is seriously ill, and Christoph escapes from the city. He takes refuge in the mountains on a secluded farm, where he is experiencing a grave mental crisis. He longs to create, but he cannot, why he feels on the verge of madness. Coming out of this test, aged ten years, Christoph feels peaceful. He "departed from himself and approached God."
Christoph wins. His work receives recognition. He creates new works, "the interweaving of unknown harmonies, a string of dizzying chords." Christophe’s latest impudent creations are accessible to only a few; he owes his glory to earlier works. The feeling that no one understands him enhances Christoph's loneliness.
Christophe meets Grace. Once, as a very young girl, Grace took music lessons from Christophe and fell in love with him. Grace's calm, bright love awakens a reciprocal feeling in Christophe's soul. They become friends, dream of getting married. The son of Grazia is jealous of her mother for the musician and is doing her best to prevent their happiness. A spoiled, sickly boy pretends to have nervous fits and coughing fits, and in the end he really gets seriously ill and dies. Following him, Grace dies, who considers herself the culprit of the death of her son.
Having lost his beloved, Christophe feels the thread breaking, connecting him to this life. And yet, it was at this time that he created his most profound works, including tragic ballads based on Spanish folk songs, including “a gloomy funeral song similar to ominous flashes of flame”. Also, Christoph wants to have time to unite the daughter of the departed lover with his son Olivier, in which for Christoph the dead friend resurrected. Young people fell in love, and Christophe is trying to arrange their wedding. He has long been unwell, but hides it, not wanting to overshadow the joyful day for the newlyweds.
Christoph's forces are dwindling. A lonely, dying Christophe lies in his room and hears an invisible orchestra performing the hymn of life. He remembers his departed friends, lovers, mother and prepares to connect with them. “The gates open ... Here is the chord I was looking for! .. But is this the end? What open spaces are ahead ... We will continue tomorrow ... "
