Vangelis Thread

[AndyDursin]

Another great...gone.

“We regret to announce that the world renowned composer Vangelis has passed away on Tuesday, May 17th, late at night. ”

http://elsew.com/data/latest.htm#19-5-2022

[AndyDursin]

(deleted)

[Eric W.]

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/ ... unner-dies

79 years old. I liked a lot of his music. Some of it is way overdue for a remaster.

[Edmund Kattak]

Apparently, COVID claimed him. Hasn't this lab abomination taken too many already?

[mkaroly]

Huge loss. RIP.

[Paul MacLean]

He was definitely one of the masters, and a favorite of mine.

But I confess I didn't warm to his music initially. In my youth I was all about John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner -- not that "synth sound" which was starting to gain popularity.

I was ambivalent when first exposed to Vangelis' work in Cosmos. I thought Chariots of Fire was "a nice enough tune" but I got tired of hearing it from every radio station 24/7 (plus, my peers -- who always jeered at my love of soundtracks -- were all enamored of the Chariots theme, which didn't help).

I was disappointed and irked when I learned Vangelis was scoring Blade Runner, as I'd assumed (or at least hoped) Ridley Scott would re-team with Jerry Goldsmith. The music for Blade Runner honestly didn't even make much of an impact when I first saw the film -- the theater was having sound issues and the audio was muffled, with no high end, so it was impossible to appreciate the score.

But it was, of all things, Missing that really caught my ear. During a family vacation my parents rented Missing, and since we were on vacation there was nothing else for me to do at night so I watched it. Vangelis' score really really knocked me over -- and not just the music, but the way it enhanced and uplifted the film.

A TV airing of Chariots of Fire a couple of months later left me impressed with how Vangelis' likewise brought that picture to life. That score was far-more than a "tuneful earworm". It gave the film an energy and passion which, I have to be honest, a more traditional orchestral score probably would not have provided. Without Vangelis Chariots of Fire would have felt more like something you'd see on "Masterpiece Theatre".

Then, about a month later, I saw Blade Runner again (on the big screen, at a university near my home) and was enthralled and overcome, by both the film and the music. To this day I consider it Vangelis' best work -- and the best electronic score ever created. But my enjoyment of the film was always slightly tempered by the fact there had been no score release -- and the advertisement for the non-existent album in the film's end credits made me (and I'm sure many others) feel like the victim of a cruel joke...



In any case, I started raiding the record stores for Vangelis albums which, while on one hand a thrill, was also fraught with frustration. Although filed in the "New Age" bins, his music was very eclectic, and I never really knew what I was in for when buying a Vangelis album. Sometimes it could be melodic and harmonious (Opera Sauvage, L'Apocalypse des Animaux), sometimes very rock-influenced (the RCA albums) sometimes incomprehensibly avant garde (Beaubourg, Invisible Connections). And course there was the fruitless search for the non-existent Bounty album.

Some of his albums really turned me off -- like Heaven and Hell, which despite some nice moments, I found scattershot and aggressively vulgar. It's honestly only in the past year I've learned to appreciate that album in full. But I'm not sure I'm ever going to listen to Beaubourg again (and I still don't own Invisible Connections on CD!).

Happily, we eventually did get a real release of Blade Runner (even if it took over a decade), and Nick Redman (bless him) included an isolated music track on the Bounty Blu-ray (mono, but a lot better than nothing!).

Following Vangelis' work over the decades his been a rewarding trip. While I've always been more of a devoté of orchestral music, Vangelis has been a favorite because his work didn't fall into the trap which a lot of synth work does -- that of being sterile, mechanized and overly repetitive. Because he was electronic, people tended to lump him with the likes of Tangerine Dream and Jean-Michel Jarre, but to me Vangelis has always seemed closer to Ennio Morricone, with a similar gift for melody and harmony, a love of choral music, the ability to do world music, pop/rock and jazz, and occasional forays into the avant garde. Many synthesists are glorified gearheads; Vangelis was a true musician.

He could be also frustratingly miserly when it came to album releases. Not only did he sit on the scores for The Bounty, Bitter Moon, and the Cousteau documentaries, he reportedly even canceled fully-completed studio albums -- Inner Data and Symphony nr. 3.

But in the end, he was a unique and visionary artist, whose like we'll never see again.

[Chris Shaneyfelt]

Wonderful reflections and tribute, Paul.

[AndyDursin]

CDs have become so cheap I bought all kinds of Vangelis albums off Bullmoose when the pandemic started just to sample them one at a time, on my "hifi system" next to my writing area. Paul's right on, it's a strange experience because some of them are brilliant, others more experimental and completely a "YMMV" situation (a few not to my taste as Paul mentioned). But if you want to talk about someone with a unique set of abilities and "sound", Vangelis was one of a kind, and brilliant in the melodies -- and avant garde soundscapes -- he created. His BLADE RUNNER score IS that movie's "universe," totally inseparable from what's on-screen.

[Paul MacLean]

People in the Vangelis Papathanassiou group of Facebook have started asking (admittedly, perhaps prematurely) "Will we be seeing albums of all that never-released music now?"

Longtime Vangelis assistant and friend Frederick Rousseau responded with "It's coming".

Tactless inquiries notwithstanding, it's good news!

[AndyDursin]

Great news indeed. Looking forward to that!

[Edmund Kattak]

Maybe a more coherent BLADE RUNNER?

[Paul MacLean]

Maybe a more coherent BLADE RUNNER?

I'll settle for The Bounty and unreleased cues from L'Apocalypse des Animaux!

[AndyDursin]

Changing this to a general thread.

Noticed several Vangelis Blu Spec 2 CD's coming in Japan which I would imagine are new remasters:

https://www.cdjapan.co.jp/products?term ... SICP-31561

[Paul MacLean]

Changing this to a general thread.

Noticed several Vangelis Blu Spec 2 CD's coming in Japan which I would imagine are new remasters:

https://www.cdjapan.co.jp/products?term ... SICP-31561

Any idea if these are drawn from the remasters Vangelis did several years ago? I have to say I was not impressed by most of those. For some, he boosted the high end way too much and swamped them with reverb. Others sounded no different than the originals -- and Antarctica even had dropouts in places!

[AndyDursin]

That I don't know. Sometimes the Japanese releases are derived from older masters, newly transferred, etc. Hopefully word will get out at some point!