BFI

Guided throughout by the swells and dips of Tchaikovsky's music, Ken Russell's The Music Lovers examines the tragedies of Tchaikovsky's life through opulent and fantastic musical sequences running alongside a narrative of the composer's life between 1875 and 1881. Touching on his disastrous marriage with Antonia Miliukova, his relationship with his patroness Nadezhda von Neck, and his repressed homosexuality, The Music Lovers is anchored by magnetic central performances from Glenda Jackson following her Academy Award for Women in Love, coupled with Richard Chamberlain as a neurotic Tchaikovsky.