Song of Summer is a 1968 black-and-white television episode co-written, produced, and directed by Ken Russell for the BBC's Omnibus series which was first broadcast on 15 September 1968.

It stars Max Adrian as Delius, Christopher Gable as Fenby, and Maureen Pryor as Jelka, with director Russell in a cameo role as a philandering priest.

He was also required to read for long stretches to Delius, the composer's favourite books being Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer.

Words like "subtle", "sensitive", "exquisite", "moving", "beautiful", "poignant", "magical", "exceptional" and "tour de force" recur in critiques of Song of Summer.

When he saw the finished film, Eric Fenby was traumatised, for it brought to the surface feelings he had been suppressing for decades, and he suffered a severe nervous breakdown which took him a full year to recover from.

[4] A theme that is quite overtly explored is the dichotomy between a composer who is an egotistical and tyrannical monster and womaniser (his blindness and paralysis were the result of tertiary syphilis contracted at Paris brothels and with other women), but who writes ravishingly beautiful, lyrical, sensitive music.

[1] The gramophone used in the film was Delius's own, and Jelka's scattering of rose petals over Frederick's dead body from her wheelchair was exactly what she did in real life.

[1] One scene shows Fenby attending a church and discovering the parish priest (played by Ken Russell) making love to a girl in a pew.