black and white
languages: Russian-English, subtitles: English-Russian
format 16:9, HD
director: Eléonore de Montesquiou
music: Peter Zinovieff
featuring: Peter Zinovieff and the voice of Evgeny Sviridov
production: France, Russia
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“Notes” is a film about revolutions, music and democracy. It
begins with the Russian Revolution in 1918 and ends four generations later with
a pioneer of electronic music. The film is based on reminiscences of Aleksander
Dimitrievitch Zinovieff, governor of Saint Petersburg from 1903 to 1911 and on
talks with his great-grandson Peter Zinovieff, inventor and composer of
electronic music in the UK in the 1950-60s.
Aleksander Dimitrievitch Zinovieff was born in 1854 and lived in Narva, Estonia and Saint
Petersburg, Russia. He was governor of Saint Petersburg from 1903 until 1911
when he joined the Council of State (Duma). At the outbreak of the First World
War, Aleksander Dimitrievitch Zinovieff
was appointed Director of the Red Cross for the Northern Region. He was
imprisonned in Kronshtadt in 1918. Liberated, he stayed in Estonia before emigrating
to Western Europe. His réminiscences were written in 1922 in Rome.
Peter Zinovieff was born in 1933 in England, both his parents were
Russian. He started experimenting in electronic music with the first computer
music studio in the world in the 1960s. Later, his company EMS produced a large
number of synthesisers including the VCS3. Peter is now an electronic music
composer living in the UK.