The composer Helmut Lachenmann, born in Stuttgart in 1935, has shaped contemporary music worldwide over the past 50 years with his "Musique Concrète Instrumentale" – a unique "noise music" in which violinists use all parts of their instruments, trumpeters crackle with baking paper, and water-filled horns are played. The very personal film approaches this music and its protagonist in a sensual and humorous way. It shows Helmut Lachenmann rehearsing with musicians and conductors, it lets us participate in the thoughts of this extraordinary artist, in the adventures of creative work - in a phase of life in which the end is becoming increasingly tangible. Above all, the film thrives on the captivating personality of the composer himself, who grows dear to our hearts with his affectionate manner, his self-irony and his Swabian humor. We see Lachenmann rehearsing with Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic, at home in Leonberg, on the trail of his apprenticeship with Luigi Nono in Venice and at the Zurich Opera House, where his opera “The Little Match Girl” is impressively staged as a ballet. Finally, we accompany the composer to his refuge high above Lake Maggiore, to the place where all of his works are still being created today.