Ken Russell had wanted to make a film about the composer Edward Elgar as early as 1959 but it wasn't until the success of his documentary about the Russian composer Prokofiev that the BBC gave him the opportunity, along with a greater budget and running time. Utilising extensive locations, including Elgar's birthplace of Birchwood Lodge as well as newsreel footage and photographs of Elgar and his family, the production also involved an increased amount of 'reconstructions'. The film sets out to rescue the composer from his association with jingoism and 'pomp and circumstance' as well as successfully making the case for understanding Elgar as a 'full-bloodied romantic' rather than simply a 'drum-beating patriot'. Elgar sealed Russell's reputation as a director, launching his career in the film industry and firmly establishing him as one of television's leading auteurs.

Ken Russell's film about Claude Debussy is a curious mixture of narratives that converge to tell the story of a film crew making a film about the life and work of the French composer. The film is somewhat miraculous in that despite containing everything from fantastic wordless sequences to precise elaborations on biographical facts, it does not collapse under the weight of its own cleverness. Starring the irrepressible Oliver Reed (The Devils, Women in Love) as Debussy, the film's mixing of popular consumer culture and the relics of history points to Russell's career-defining attitude, in which the past is made intelligible to the present.

Based closely on Eric Fenby's book entitled Delius as I Knew Him, Ken Russell's 1968 documentary is considered by many to be the finest of his biographical productions for the BBC. Upon seeing it, Russell's then boss described it as "the best film I have ever seen about a composer". Highlights include Russell's marvellous re-enactments of the Fenby-Delius dictation sequences - arguably the dramatic and musical highlights of the film.