Percy Grainger (Richard Roxburgh) with Karen holten (Emily Woof) who almost lured him away from his mother. But there was a price: to prepare for the role in Passion, Woof visited a Sydney S&M establishment.

"I'm paraphrasing, but the letter he read was from a friend, and he said, 'It seems to me that you've already met the greatest love of your life. It just so happens that she's your mother.'

"There always has been - and still is - a great deal of prejudice about the relationship between Rose and Percy," continues the actress. "People feel that the mother-son bit was warped or strange. But there's another side to it... a very beautiful side - very rich and quite extraordinary.

"We don't just portray it as something beautiful, however: there is the dark side of the intertwined mother-son obsession - and Percy's flagellation, which looms large in people's minds."

In point of fact, although Grainger was - with his golden-boy good looks and boundless energy - very attractive to women, his relationship with Rose seems to have short-circuited his sexual maturity. Perhaps as a result, he was heavily into S&M long before such practices were admitted, let alone fashionable, least of all in the hyperconservative Australia of the early 20th century.

But this is not, of course, the only aspect of Grainger's life that Passion deals with. Adapted from a stage play by Rob George which received its premiere at the Adelaide Festival in the eighties, the film focuses on the life of a musician who was, in his time, far more famous than David Helfgott, the subject of the Oscar-winning Shine, and also in many respects odder.

"The greatest problem with making a film about Percy is that he was constantly inconsistent," says Carroll. "Some people say he was a racist, but I can produce countless incidents in his life that prove that he was the complete opposite. He was full of these immense contradictions. Here was this incredibly sophisticated man who loved his mother; who realised that there was nothing more horrendous to her than whipping himself - but still he whipped himself. Just as you begin to understand him, he does the opposite."

Born in Melbourne, Grainger was a true eccentric, whose secondary aims in life included ridding the English language of Latin and Greek words and converting his fellow countrymen to the benefits of terry-towelling (he made his own shorts and tops, since manufacturers had yet to see the light).

The toast of Edwardian London, he studied under Busoni and was reckoned by Grieg to be the greatest living interpreter of his work. But was also fascinated by jazz and developed what he called 'elastic scoring', which encouraged conductors to assemble orchestras made up of instruments of their choice.