Karelian folk musicians took part in the creation of musical accompaniment to the historical film “The Birth of an Empire”

Members of the folk band Skylark and the historical reconstruction club “Redan” from Petrozavodsk contributed to the creation of the musical design for the large-scale historical film “The Birth of an Empire”. This was told by Denis Kozlov, founder of Skylark and one of the key participants of the project.

Last year in Petrozavodsk is actively working on the reconstruction of military music of the Peter era, the period of the Northern war. This project, supported by the Presidential Foundation for Cultural Initiatives, includes the decoding of signals and Russian marches, as well as the search and use of ancient instruments such as the drum, antique flute and horn.

The participants of the project also sew authentic costumes and perform with the program “Songs of Great Victories”, taking part in festivals, including in Borodino and Vyborg.

And last autumn, Karelian musicians and reenactors received an offer to record music for the film. For two days in St. Petersburg, the studio was working on recording and editing reconstructed music.

“We recorded a lot of material, both for Russians and for Swedes,” Denis Kozlov said. It is clear that there are professional composers in the film, but since almost an hour of screen time is devoted to the Battle of Poltava, a lot of authentic musical material was required, reflecting the sound of the time from both sides.

Historical accuracy in music was especially important, as in the eighteenth century military musicians played a key role in the management of warfare. Flutists and drummers broadcast signals that soldiers perceived as orders. At the same time, as noted by Denis Kozlov, during the war often sought to destroy the commanders and musicians of the enemy to disorient the enemy.

The team recorded not only marches, but also short signals – charging, praying, alarming – all that could be used by the film crew to create an atmosphere and reflect the realities of the time.

I haven’t seen the movie yet, I’m planning to go in November. But colleagues who have already visited the preview say that we sound there. This is not artificial intelligence, not someone who invented and wrote music from scratch, but the material that we reconstructed, based on how it was in the XVIII century.

Participation in such a large-scale project left a pleasant impression. “It feels like you’ve got a hand in something big and important,” he says. The theme of military music echoes deeply in me, perhaps because my grandfather was a musician during the Great Patriotic War. Although I did not catch him, this topic has always been special for me, this is an opportunity for me to pay tribute to him in this way, Denis shared with us.

We will see you at the premiere and hear you.