Rent The Music Lovers (1971)
3.6 of 5 from 76 ratings
1h 58min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
Composer Peter Tchaikovsky (Richard Chamberlain) abandons his intimate friend, Count Chiluvsky (Christopher Gable), when Madame Von Meck (Izabella Telezynska) sponsors him after she hears him perform his First Piano Concerto. A tortured man, unhappy except in his music, Tchaikovsky marries Nina Milukova (Glenda Jackson), a passionate, neurotic girl. When he is unable to fulfill the demands of matrimony, his tensions become so great that he attempts suicide and has a nervous breakdown. Nina's world also falls apart, and she deteriorates into madness and ends in an asylum. Tchaikovsky recuperates at a country estate of Madame Von Meck. The two correspond, but never meet. At a great party, which she gives in his honor Count Chiluvsky appears, and when Tchaikovsky rebuffs him, he tells Madame Von Meck the truth about her protege. Madame Von Meck immediately servers all connections with the composer. Tchaikovsky is hurt, but continues to compose and conduct throughout the world. World fame does not ameliorate his unhappy state. At the age of 53, after composing his "requiem," his Pathetique Symphony, he deliberately drinks water contaminated with cholera germs. A few days later he is dead. Decades later, his music still lives. - Actors:
- Richard Chamberlain, Glenda Jackson, Max Adrian, Christopher Gable, Kenneth Colley, Izabella Telezynska, Maureen Pryor, Sabina Maydelle, Andrew Faulds, Bruce Robinson, Ben Aris, Xavier Russell, Dennis Myers, John Myers, Joanne Brown, Alexei Jawdokimov, Alex 'Alien' Russell, Clive Cazes, Georgina Parkinson, Graham Armitage
- Directors:
- Ken Russell
- Producers:
- Ken Russell
- Writers:
- Melvyn Bragg, Catherine Drinker Bowen, Barbara von Meck
- Aka:
- Opus 74 / The Lonely Heart
- Studio:
- MGM
- Genres:
- Comedy, Drama, Lesbian & Gay, Music & Musicals, Romance
- Collections:
- A History of Films about Film: Part 1, A World of Difference: A History of Gay Cinema, Drama Films & TV, A Brief History of Film..., Top 10 Barnyard Bird Films, Top Films, What We Were Watching in 1971
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 17/06/2024
- Run Time:
- 124 minutes
- Languages:
- English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, English LPCM Stereo
- Subtitles:
- English Audio Description
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Widescreen 2.35:1
- Colour:
- Colour
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Newly recorded audio commentary by film historian Matthew Melia
- It Runs in the Family (2024, 20 mins): Ken Russell's son, Alexander Verney-Elliott, looks back upon his father's work, and remembers his own appearance in 'The Music Lovers'
- Charlotte Bronte Enters the Big Brother House (2007, 16 mins): Ken Russell staged, directed and filmed this 'radical Bronte' ballet for young people, illustrating Jane Eyre
- The Guardian Interview: Melvyn Bragg (1988, 76 mins): ten years after the inception of The Southbank Show, Melvyn Bragg discusses his career in television and film writer Ronald Harwood, at the National Film Theatre in London
- Galina Ulanova in ''Swan Lake'' (1940, 4 mins): one of the greatest ballerinas of all time performs a dance from Tchaikovsky's masterpiece
- Musical Highlights from USSR Today (1953-56, 10 mins): edited highlights from three editions of the Soviet newsreel, gathering items about Tchaikovsky and Russian musical arts
- Costume designs: original sketches by Shirley Russell
- Original trailer
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Reviews (2) of The Music Lovers
Ken Russell strikes again - The Music Lovers review by Pete W
Although this film got dreadful reviews, I think it is a good attempt at a biographical account of the life of Tchaikovsky. It's mid way between the understated Russell biopics of Elgar and Delius and the overblown Mahler and Lisztomania. Richard Chamberlain is surprisingly good and, if he isn't actually a concert pianist, he certainly knows how to act convincingly like one. Watch him bash out the first piano concerto!
0 out of 0 members found this review helpful.
Best Ever Ken Russell Film - The Music Lovers review by PV
I loved this film. I watched it on TV in the 80s or 90s, but saw so much when watching it again. True, I do love the music of Tchaivovsky, which helps, but I think most people would love this movie. It's fun, exhuberant, theatrical, interesting and risky - all the things most if not all movies by Brit directors are not these days. The screenplay is from a book by a relative of the composer's sponsor, so it's all pretty true and a cracking good tragic story too. The only inaccuracy is that Peter Tchaivoksky's death came about because he made a pass at the Tsar's nephew - buy anyhow, the film rises and falls like a great symphony....................................... Just as tragic really to think that Ken Russell could not get funding from the BBC or Channel 4 (which is funded by our BBC cash) to make any films whatsoever in the last 25 years of his life - so self-funded and financed small digital video movies. And yet our money financed dross like Sex Lives of the Potato Men and loads of gritty, realistic, utterly tedious films by young Scottish female directors...
0 out of 2 members found this review helpful.