A young man is departing by train and says goodbye to his two parents in different ways. In another scene, a little girl is going to school very reluctantly and her brother has to practically drag her there.

We meet a few of the musicians attending the conservatory and the orchestra conductor, who is no-nonsense and stern.

Matteo makes his way to his uncle's apartment. Never mind that his uncle was supposed to come to the station to get him... They agree that there is no point in worrying Matteo's father with the truth.

Matteo arrives late for class and is told, to sit next to Sara who begins asking him questions. It turns out she is almost blind. After the lesson, Matteo meets some of his classmates.

A teacher reads a passage from one of Shakespeare's sonnets and asks the class to interpret it. Matteo speaks up. Here is the original English: "Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
Resembling sire and child and happy mother,
Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none."

Matteo is having a violin lesson when Marioni passes by in the hall and hears him. Matteo's lesson ends early and he is about to learn more about the orchestra conductor everyone thinks of as il bastardo (the bastard).

Marioni puts Matteo to the test, asking him to play first violin in the Brahms symphony, together with the entire orchestra. Later, Domenico tells him about someone who had crumbled under Marioni's harsh treatment.