Throughout his adult life, Robert Schumann (1810-56) struggled against a fear of mental disintegration. His Symphony No.2 in C major, op.61 was written in 1845 while he was recovering from a breakdown. It contains an illustration of how his creative demons, the heroic, high-spirited"Florestan", and the brooding, poetic"Eusebius", came into conflictin his music and intimate lyricism. Focusing on the Second Symphony, this film uses a dynamic interaction between rehearsal footage and dramatized sequences to give a penetrating insight into the composer's complex and fractured genius.