The Music Lovers

The Music Lovers is a 1971 British drama film directed by Ken Russell and starring Richard Chamberlain and Glenda Jackson. The screenplay by Melvyn Bragg, based on Beloved Friend, a collection of personal correspondence edited by Catherine Drinker Bowen and Barbara von Meck, focuses on the life and career of 19th-century Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It was one of the director's biographical films about classical composers, which include Elgar (1962), Delius: Song of Summer (1968), Mahler (1974) and Lisztomania (1975), made from an often idiosyncratic standpoint. Plot Much of the film is without dialogue and the story is presented in flashbacks, nightmares, and fantasy sequences set to Tchaikovsky's music. As a child, the composer sees his mother die horribly, forcibly immersed in scalding water as a supposed cure for cholera, and is haunted by the scene throughout his musical career. Despite his difficulty in establishing his reputation, he attracts Madame Nadezhda von Meck as his patron. His marriage to the allegedly nymphomaniacal Antonina Miliukova is plagued by his homosexual urges and lustful desire for Count Anton Chiluvsky. The dynamics of his life lead to deteriorating mental health and the loss of von Meck's patronage, and he dies of cholera after deliberately drinking contaminated water while his wife ends up in an insane asylum. Cast Richard Chamberlain as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Glenda Jackson as Nina (Antonina Milyukova) Max Adrian as Nikolai Rubinstein Christopher Gable as Count Anton Chiluvsky Kenneth Colley as Modeste Tchaikovsky Izabella Telezynska as Madame Nadezhda von Meck Maureen Pryor as Nina's Mother Sabina Maydelle as Sasha Tchaikovsky Andrew Faulds as Davidov Bruce Robinson as Alexei Sofronov Ben Aris as Young Lieutenant Xavier Russell as Koyola Dennis Myers as Von Meck, twin John Myers as Von Meck, twin Joanne Brown as Olga Bredska Alexei Jawdokimov as Dmitri Shubelov Alex Russell as Von Meck child (as Alexander Russell) Clive Cazes as Doctor Georgina Parkinson as Odile (SWAN LAKE ballet) Alan Dubreuil as Prince in Swan Lake Graham Armitage as Prince Balukin Ernest Bale as Headwaiter Consuela Chapman as Tchaikovsky's Mother James Russell as Bobyek Victoria Russell as Tatiana Alex Brewer as Young Tchaikovsky Production