From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Music Lovers
The Music Lovers
The Music Lovers The Music Lovers is a 1970 British biographical film di-
rected by Ken Russell. The screenplay by Melvyn Bragg,
based on Beloved Friend, a collection of personal corre-
spondence edited by Catherine Drinker Bowen and Bar-
bara von Meck, focuses on the life and career of 19th
century Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It
was one of a series of films, including Elgar (1962), Mahler
(1974) and Lisztomania (1975), delineating the lives of
classical composers the director made from an often idio-
syncratic standpoint.
Synopsis
Much of the film is without dialogue and the story is pre-
sented 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 dif-
ficulty in establishing his reputation, he attracts Madame
Nadezhda von Meck as his patron. His marriage to the
nymphomaniacal Antonina Miliukova is plagued by his
Directed by Ken Russell homosexual urges and lustful desire for Count Anton
Produced by Ken Russell Chiluvsky. The dynamics of his life lead to deteriorating
mental health and the loss of von Meck’s patronage, and
Written by Melvyn Bragg, based on a collection of
he dies of cholera after deliberately drinking contaminat-
letters edited by Catherine Drinker
Bowen and Barbara von Meck ed water.
Starring Richard Chamberlain
Glenda Jackson Production notes
Kenneth Colley
Christopher Gable The film’s title card reads Ken Russell’s Film on Tchaikovsky
Max Adrian and The Music Lovers in order to differentiate it from
Isabella Telezynska Tchaikovsky, a Russian film released the previous year.
Maureen Pryor Rafael Orozco recorded the piano pieces played by
Andrew Faulds
Tchaikovsky in the film.
Music by André Previn Director Russell hired his wife Shirley as costume de-
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky signer and cast four of their children - Alexander, Victo-
Cinematography Douglas Slocombe ria, James, and Xavier - in small roles.
The film includes at least two major factual errors. In
Editing by Michael Bradsell one sequence, Tchaikovsky and his patron see each oth-
Distributed by United Artists er on the road, although in fact the two never met. Later,
his wife Nina goes mad and is placed in an insane asylum,
Release date(s) December, 1970 prompting the composer to call his Sixth Symphony the
January 24, 1971 Pathetique, when in reality she wasn’t institutionalized
Running time 122 min. until after his death.
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Principal cast
• Richard Chamberlain ..... Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Budget £1,600,000 • Glenda Jackson ..... Antonina Miliukova
1
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Music Lovers
• Izabella Telezynska ..... Nadezhda von Meck bearing a vague resemblance to, Tchaikovsky, his life and
• Max Adrian ..... Nikolai Rubinstein times."[2]
• Christopher Gable ..... Count Anton Chiluvsky Time said, "Seventy-seven years have passed since
• Kenneth Colley ..... Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky Tchaikovsky’s death. In this epoch of emancipated
morality, it would be reasonable to expect that his life
Principal production credits would be reviewed with fresh empathy. But no; the same
malignant attitudinizing that might have been applied
• Executive Producer ..... Roy Baird decades ago is still at work . . . [the film’s] arch tableaux,
• Original Music ..... André Previn its unstable amalgam of life and art, make it a director’s
• Cinematography ..... Douglas Slocombe picture . . . attempting to reveal psychology through mu-
• Production Design ..... Natasha Kroll sic, Russell makes every character grotesque, every bar of
• Art Direction ..... Michael Knight music programmatic."[3]
• Costume Design ..... Shirley Ann Russell Variety opined, "By unduly emphasizing the mad and
the perverse in their biopic . . . producer-director Ken
Soundtrack Russell and scripter Melvyn Bragg lose their audience.
The result is a motion picture that is frequently dra-
The London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by André matically and visually stunning but more often tedious
Previn, performs excerpts from the following pieces: and grotesque . . . Instead of a Russian tragedy, Russell
• Piano Concerto in B Flat Minor seems more concerned with haunting the viewers’ mem-
• Eugene Onegin ory with shocking scenes and images. The opportunity to
• Pathétique create a memorable and fluid portrait of the composer
• Manfred Symphony has been sacrificed for a musical Grand Guignol."[4]
• Romeo and Juliet In the Cleveland Press, Toni Mastroianni said, "The
• 1812 Overture movies have treated composers notoriously badly but
• Hamlet few films have been quite so awful as this pseudo-biogra-
phy of Tchaikovsky."[5]
Critical reception Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader described the film
as a "Ken Russell fantasia - musical biography as wet
The film received mostly bad reviews upon American re- dream" and added, "[it] hangs together more successfully
lease. than his other similar efforts, thanks largely to a power-
In his review in the New York Times, Vincent Canby house performance by Glenda Jackson, one actress who
stated, can hold her own against Russell’s excess."[6]
“ Mr. Russell has told us a lot less about ” TV Guide calls it "a spurious biography of a great com-
Tchaikovsky and his music than he has about poser that is so filled with wretched excesses that one
himself as a filmmaker . . . [His] speculations hardly knows where to begin . . . all the attendant sur-
are not as offensive as his frontal — and often realistic touches director Ken Russell has added take this
absurd — attacks on the emotions. Richard out of the realm of plausibility and into the depths of
Chamberlain . . . is fine as Tchaikovsky, look- cheap gossip."[7]
ing a bit like a haunted faun, and Glenda Jack- Time Out New York calls it "vulgar, excessive, melodra-
son is all sinewy nerves as Nina, but they are matic and self-indulgent . . . the drama is at fever pitch
hard put to match the . . . nonstop hysteria of throughout . . . Chamberlain doesn’t quite have the range
the production that surrounds them . . . I ex- required in the central role, though his keyboard skills
pect many people may look on The Music are impressive."[8]
Lovers as an advance on the classical musical Pauline Kael would later say in an interview: "You re-
biographies turned out by Hollywood in the ally feel you should drive a stake through the heart of the
1940s, but for all of its so-called frankness, man who made it. I mean it is so vile. It is so horrible." [9]
there isn’t much difference between this kind
of sensational, souped-up popularization and
the sort of pious, souped-down popularization
References
that cast Cornel Wilde as Chopin and Robert [1] Canby, Vincent (January 25, 1971). "Screen: Ken
Walker as Brahms.[1] Russell’s Study of Tchaikovsky Opens". The New
York Times. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called it "an in- review?res=940CE4DE163BE53BBC4D51DFB766838A669EDE.
volved and garish private fantasy" and "totally irrespon- Retrieved January 13, 2012.
sible as a film about, or inspired by, or parallel to, or [2] Chicago Sun-Times review
[3] Time review
2
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Music Lovers
[4] Variety review Conversations Series. Jackson, Miss.: University
[5] Cleveland Press review Press of Mississippi. p. 28. ISBN 0-87805-899-0.
[6] Chicago Reader review OCLC 34319309.
[7] TV Guide review
[8]
[9]
Time Out New York review
Malko, George (1996). "Pauline Kael Wants People
External links
to Go to the Movies: A Profile". In Brantley, Will. • The Music Lovers at the Internet Movie Database
Conversations with Pauline Kael. Literary • The Music Lovers at AllRovi
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Music_Lovers&oldid=471211436"
Categories:
• 1970 films
• British drama films
• 1970s drama films
• Films about classical music and musicians
• Films directed by Ken Russell
• United Artists films
• British LGBT-related films
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
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