The Music Lovers

The Music Lovers
Directed by	Ken Russell
Produced by	Ken Russell
Written by	Melvyn Bragg, based on a collection of letters edited by Catherine Drinker Bowen and Barbara von Meck
Starring	Richard Chamberlain Glenda Jackson Kenneth Colley Christopher Gable Max Adrian Isabella Telezynska Maureen Pryor Andrew Faulds
Music by	André Previn Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Cinematography	Douglas Slocombe
Edited by	Michael Bradsell
Production company	Russ-Arts
Distributed by	United Artists (1970, theatrical) MGM (2011, DVD)
Release date	December 1970 (UK) 24 January 1971 (US)
Running time	122 min.
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	£1,600,000 (UK)

The Music Lovers is a 1970 British drama film directed by Ken Russell. 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.

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, he attracts Madame Nadezhda von Meck as his patron. His marriage to the nymphomaniacal Antonina Miliukova is plagued by his homosexual urges and lustful desire for Count Anton Chiluvsky. The dynamics of his life lead to deteriorating mental health and the loss of von Meck's patronage, and he dies of cholera after deliberately drinking contaminated water.

The film's title card reads Ken Russell's Film on Tchaikovsky and The Music Lovers to differentiate it from Tchaikovsky, a Russian film released the previous year.

Rafael Orozco recorded the piano pieces played by Tchaikovsky in the film.

Director Russell hired his wife Shirley as costume designer and cast four of their children – Alexander, Victoria, James, and Xavier – in small roles.