Professor Robert Winston brings a scientist's ear to his passion for music, exploring the medical histories of great composers and how illness affected the music they wrote.

The romantic sweep of Tchaikovsky's music has made him a favourite with audiences for over a century. But is it possible that the extremes of emotion expressed in his best loved symphonies, ballets and operas were the product of a man tormented? Professor Winston examines Tchaikovsky's experience of living as a gay man in 19th century Russia, where homosexuality was illegal, and puts under the microscope the theory that Tchaikovsky's music reveals a man who was psychologically damaged by the conflict between his nature and society's expectations. Show less