Alfred Schweigen first appears to the readers as a man detached slightly from the world yet fascinated by it. He tells, almost in a news-like fashion, how easily changes can occur in the Catholic Church through interpretation and rules. Which seemed immoveable, such as the melting of the host in your mouth, yet now has changed forever. Even his description of an acquaintance of his being murdered, as reported in the paper, seems distant although he seems to remember that the man was quite "agreeable". While he seems transformed in his love for the music school, he never the less appears distant in his relationships with those around him as he comments that his wife visits a psychiatrist "because I am unfaithful to her. I do not understand the connection, but there seems to be one". He also talks of his own failures, in sticking to music or completing a novel, and finds he is "envious and incredulous" of those who can complete something.
The music school, on the other hand, provides a place where Schweigen can see a place of hope. He finds he is content as he sees his daughter "emerge from her lesson [and she is] satisfied, refreshed, hopeful" and "her pleased smile, biting her lower lip, pierces my heart, and I die (I think I am dying) at her feet". The music school, in other words, provides a place of renewal and accomplishment that Schweigen does not seem to have within his own life. His daughter, and his love for her, also provides a sense of hope for the man. He finds the innocence and awkwardness of the students in the school to also contrast the bland realities of his own life; a life in which the murder of a colleague remains a distant news item. The music school lastly provides for him an escape from his own life as the music within it remains to him as mysterious and full of vision.
"The Music School" is about a man drawn to tears and fears of rejection by certain events.