Watch The Music Lovers

The Music Lovers is a 1970 drama about the 19th century Russian composer Tchaikovsky. The film was directed by Ken Russell and it is one of several movies he made about classical composers. The other films include Elgar (1962), Delius:Song of Summer (1968) and Mahler (1974). The Music Lovers takes its point of departure from a book titled Beloved Friend that is a collection of Tchaikovsky’s personal correspondence.

Russell’s films about classical composers all adopt a somewhat idiosyncratic point of view in telling the story. The Music Lovers focuses on Tchaikovsky’s struggles with homosexuality and his inability satisfy his nymphomaniac wife. Russell cast four of his own children in the film.