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 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ken Russell
Henry Kenneth Alfred Russell (3 July 1927 – 27 November 2011) was a British film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film and for his flamboyant and controversial style. His films were mainly liberal adaptations of existing texts, or biographies, notably of composers of the Romantic music, Romantic era. Russell began directing for the BBC, where he made creative adaptations of composers' lives which were unusual for the time. He also directed many feature films independently and for Film studio, studios. Russell is best known for his Academy Award-winning romantic drama film ''Women in Love (film), Women in Love'' (1969); the historical drama horror film ''The Devils (film), The Devils'' (1971); the musical fantasy film ''Tommy (1975 film), Tommy'' (1975), featuring the Who; and the science fiction horror film ''Altered States'' (1980). Russell also directed several films based on the lives of classical music composers, such as Elgar (film), Elgar, S ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures. The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, which later became fantasy literature, fantasy literature and drama. From the twentieth century onward, it has expanded into various media, including film, television, graphic novels, manga, animation, and video games. The expression ''fantastic literature'' is often used for this genre by Anglophone literary critics. An archaic spelling for the term is ''phantasy''. Fantasy is generally distinguished from the genres of science fiction and horror fiction, horror by an absence of scientific or macabre themes, although these can occur in fantasy. In popular culture, the fantasy genre predominantly features settings that reflect the actual Earth, but with some sense of otherness. Characteristics Many works of fantasy use magic (paranorma ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Andrew Faulds
Andrew Matthew William Faulds (1 March 1923 – 31 May 2000) was a British actor and Labour Party politician. After a successful acting career on stage, on radio and in films, he was a Member of Parliament from 1966 to 1997. Early life Faulds was born to Church of Scotland missionary parents in Isoko, Tanganyika. Due to his father's peripatetic vocation, he grew up in various parts of Britain, and was educated at George Watson's College, Edinburgh, King Edward VI Grammar School, Louth, Daniel Stewart's College, Edinburgh, and Stirling High School. He married Bunty Whitfield in 1945. The couple had one daughter. During the Second World War he served in both the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm. After graduating from the University of Glasgow, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1948. He first came to a wider public recognition playing Jet Morgan in Charles Chilton's radio drama '' Journey into Space'' on the BBC Light Programme. Acting career In 1959, Faul ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Maureen Pryor
Maureen St John Pook (23 May 1922 – 5 May 1977), known professionally as Maureen Pryor, was an Irish-born English character actress who made stage, film, and television appearances. ''The Encyclopaedia of British Film'' noted, "she never played leads, but, with long rep and TV experience (from 1949), she was noticeable in all she did." Early life Pryor was born in Limerick, Ireland, to a British father and an Irish mother. She began acting with Manchester Repertory in 1938, and studied with Michel Saint-Denis at the London Theatre Studio in 1939. Career She appeared in the West End in Michael Clayton Hutton's '' Power Without Glory'', Seán O'Casey's '' Red Roses for Me'', Noël Coward's '' Peace in Our Time'', John Griffith Bowen's '' After the Rain'' (also on Broadway), Doris Lessing's ''Play with a Tiger'' and plays such as ''Little Boxes'' and ''Where's Tedd''. She was a member of the Stables Theatre Company. She also appeared on Broadway in the premiere season of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Modest Tchaikovsky
Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky (; –) was a Russian people, Russian dramatist, opera librettist and translator. Early life Modest Ilyich was born in Alapayevsk, Verkhotursky Uyezd, Perm Governorate, the younger brother of the composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. He graduated from the Imperial School of Jurisprudence with a degree in law. In 1876, Modest became the tutor to a deaf-mute boy Nikolai ("Kolya") Hermanovich Konradi (1868–1922) and, using a special teaching method, helped him to talk, write, and read. In his still unpublished autobiography, broadly quoted by Alexander Poznansky, Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky mentions his and his brother's homosexuality.Poznansky, Alexander. ''Tchaikovsky Through Others' Eyes''. Indiana University Press, 1999, p. 8 Career Modest chose to dedicate his entire life to literature and music. He wrote plays, translated sonnets by William Shakespeare, Shakespeare into Russian and wrote librettos for operas by his brother Pyotr, as well as for other c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kenneth Colley
Kenneth Colley (born 7 December 1937) is an English film and television actor whose career spans over 60 years. He came to wider prominence through his role as Admiral Piett in the ''Star Wars'' films ''The Empire Strikes Back'' (1980) and ''Return of the Jedi'' (1983), as well as his roles in the films of Ken Russell and as Jesus in '' Monty Python’s Life of Brian''. Career Colley was born in Manchester, Lancashire. One of his early appearances on British television was as Noah Riley in the 1970s police drama '' The Sweeney'', in an episode entitled '' Trap''. He played Jesus in '' The Life of Brian'', having also appeared in the earlier Monty Python-related production ''Ripping Yarns'' episode " The Testing of Eric Olthwaite" alongside Michael Palin. As a Shakespearean actor he played the Duke of Vienna in the BBC Television Shakespeare production of ''Measure for Measure'' in 1979. Colley worked extensively with British director Ken Russell from the early 1970s to the ear ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Christopher Gable
Christopher Michael Gable, CBE (13 March 194023 October 1998) was an English ballet dancer, choreographer and actor. Life and career Dance career Born in London, Gable studied at the Royal Ballet School, joining the Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet in 1957. He was promoted to soloist in 1959 and principal in 1961. Gable's roles included Romeo in the Kenneth MacMillan production of ''Romeo and Juliet'', Mercury in Offenbach's comic operetta ''Orpheus in the Underworld'', a production that was filmed and released on DVD, and Colas in ''La fille mal gardée''. Gable frequently partnered with Lynn Seymour. Gable suffered from a chronic rheumatoid condition in his feet and left the Royal Ballet in 1967 to pursue a career in acting. Screen acting career Gable appeared in a number of television and film productions directed by Ken Russell. These included '' Song of Summer'' (1968) and '' Dance of the Seven Veils'' (1970) for BBC television, and the films ''Women in Love'' (1969), ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nikolai Rubinstein
Nikolai Grigoryevich Rubinstein (; – ) was a Russian pianist, conductor, and composer. He was the younger brother of Anton Rubinstein and a close friend of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Life Born to Jewish parents in Moscow, where his father had just opened a small factory, Rubinstein showed talent at the keyboard early on. He studied piano first with his mother, and while the family was in Berlin between 1844 and 1846, he studied piano with Theodor Kullak and harmony and counterpoint with Siegfried Dehn; during this time both he and his brother Anton attracted the interest and support of Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer. When the family returned to Moscow, Nikolai studied with Alexander Villoing, who also toured with him. He studied medicine to avoid army conscription, graduating from Moscow University in 1855. As a result of his playing, Rubinstein was welcomed in all the fashionable artistocratic houses in Moscow. He co-founded the Moscow branch of the Russian Musical Socie ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Max Adrian
Max Adrian (born Guy Thornton Bor; 1 November 1903 – 19 January 1973) was an Irish stage, film and television actor and singer. He was a founding member of both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. In addition to his success as a character actor in classical drama, Adrian was known for his work as a singer and comic actor in revue and musicals, and in one-man shows about George Bernard Shaw and Gilbert and Sullivan, and in cinema and television films, notably Ken Russell's '' Song of Summer'' as the ailing composer Delius. Early years Adrian was born in Kilkenny, County Kilkenny, Ireland, the son of Edward Norman Cavendish Bor and Mabel Lloyd Thornton. He was born in the provincial Bank of Ireland branch in Kilkenny, where his father was the bank manager, into a Church of Ireland family, the seventh of eight children. His paternal ancestry was Dutch, from settlers who arrived in Ireland with William of Orange in 1689. He was educated at the Portora Roy ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Antonina Milyukova
Antonina Ivanovna Miliukova (; – ) was the wife of Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky from 1877 until his death in 1893. After marriage she was known as Antonina Tchaikovskaya. Early years Little is known of Antonina before she met Tchaikovsky. Her family resided in the Moscow area. They belonged to the local gentry but lived in poverty. The family was also a highly fractious one. Tchaikovsky tells us as much in a letter he wrote his sister Alexandra Davydova during his honeymoon: After three days with them in the country, I begin to see that everything I can't stand in my wife derives from her belonging to a completely weird family, where the mother was always arguing with the father—and now, after his death, does not hesitate to malign his memory in every way possible. It's a family in which the mother ''hates'' (!!!) some of her own children, in which the sisters are constantly squabbling, in which the only son has completely fallen out with his mother and all ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lust
Lust is an intense desire for something. Lust can take any form such as the lust for sexuality (see libido), money, or power. It can take such mundane forms as the lust for food (see gluttony) as distinct from the need for food or lust for redolence, when one is lusting for a particular smell that brings back memories. It is similar to but distinguished from passion, in that properly ordered passion propels individuals to achieve benevolent goals whilst lust does not. In religion Religions tend to draw a distinction between passion and lust by further categorizing lust as an immoral desire and passion as morally accepted. Lust is defined as immoral because its object or action of affection is improperly ordered according to natural law and/or the appetite for the particular object (eg sexual desire) is governing the person's will and intellect rather than the will and intellect governing the appetite for that object. Whereas passion, regardless of its strength, is maintaine ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Antonina Miliukova
Antonina Ivanovna Miliukova (; – ) was the wife of Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky from 1877 until his death in 1893. After marriage she was known as Antonina Tchaikovskaya. Early years Little is known of Antonina before she met Tchaikovsky. Her family resided in the Moscow area. They belonged to the local gentry but lived in poverty. The family was also a highly fractious one. Tchaikovsky tells us as much in a letter he wrote his sister Alexandra Davydova during his honeymoon: After three days with them in the country, I begin to see that everything I can't stand in my wife derives from her belonging to a completely weird family, where the mother was always arguing with the father—and now, after his death, does not hesitate to malign his memory in every way possible. It's a family in which the mother ''hates'' (!!!) some of her own children, in which the sisters are constantly squabbling, in which the only son has completely fallen out with his mother and all ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |