Soviet biopic about the life of Pyotr Tchaikovsky, which, of course, leaves out details of the composer's life, which do not neatly fit into the morals supposedly demonstrated by either a Soviet --- or now --- Russian man. When Tchaikovsky was working on his First Piano Concerto, his dominant friend, the pianist Nikolai Grigoryevich Rubinstein, refused to play it at the world premiere, because he thought it unplayable. Shortly after the failure of the ballet “Swan Lake”, wealthy widow Nadezhda Filaretovna von Meck sends the composer a check. A little later he decides to compose his opera "Eugene Onegin" with Alexander Pushkin's work of the same name as a template. While working on the opera, he receives a love letter from student Antonina Ivanovna. Trying to see her, he is arrested, but released a little later. Tchaikovsky is writing his Fourth Symphony and dedicating it to his patroness von Meck. She hopes that Tchaikovsky's marriage to the student will give the composer the peace he needs for his work. While Tchaikovsky's entourage reacts enthusiastically to his wife at his side, the homosexual composer is driven insane by married life; he attempts suicide in the Moscow River. When Antonina asks 10,000 rubles for her consent to divorce, Nadezhda von Meck, who has longed for spiritual company all her life, comes to the rescue to relieve her soulmate Tchaikovsky from the torments of marriage. A little later, Rubinstein died in Paris after playing Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto there - in the meantime benevolently facing the work. 

DVD-R is in Russian with switchable English subtitles. Approx. 147 mins.  See film samples for sound and video quality!