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On the Death of Vangelis: Six Melodies to Remember

2022-05-20T11:51:31.815Z


His electronically influenced sounds accompanied historical films, boxing matches and space missions. Now the Greek musician Vangelis has died. As a commemoration, here are some of his most formative compositions.


Enlarge image

Musician Vangelis, early 1970s

Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Evangelios Papathanassiou was born on March 29, 1943 in Agria near Volos.

As a musician, he was known by the Greek short form of his first name: Vangelis.

His film music for "Chariots of Fire" (German: "The Hour of the Victor") was awarded an Oscar;

its special mix of electronic sounds and great emotions made Vangelis' music the ideal accompaniment for sporting events and space missions.

On Thursday, a law firm made public Vangelis' death;

his assistant announced that the musician died of heart failure in a Paris hospital on May 17.

»The Four Horsemen«

Vangelis began his musical career with school friends in the band The Forminx, but he became internationally known with Aphrodite's Child: the musicians left Greece after the military coup in 1967 and ended up in Paris.

The pop arrangement »Rain and Tears«, based on a Pachelbel canon, was a Europe-wide hit (here a contemporary television appearance).

But keyboarder Vangelis felt the pop hits were too light.

He left his mark much more on the last double album before Aphrodite's Child disbanded (and bassist Demis Roussos made a great career as a pop singer): »666« is now considered a classic of psychedelic rock music;

the most famous track on »666« is the apocalyptic »The Four Horsemen«, which is particularly impressive due to its long intro,

»Pulstar«

Vangelis left Paris in the mid-1970s for London, where he set up his own recording studio, Nemo Studios.

There, a series of predominantly instrumental electronic albums were created, each with a different philosophical overarching theme.

Some, like 1979's »China«, became classics of the New Age scene.

A track from Heaven and Hell (1975) became the theme music to the acclaimed popular science TV series Our Cosmos (here are the first minutes of the original US version starring Carl Sagan).

And »Pulstar«, the opening track of the album »Albedo 0.39« from 1976, with its extremely catchy melody is a frequently covered classic of synthesizer music.

»Chariots of Fire-Titles«

Vangelis had already composed film music in the 1970s.

But the first major soundtrack success came when film producer David Puttnam was looking for music for a film about the journey of two British athletes to the 1924 Summer Olympics.

One could have imagined sounds typical of the period for the period film »Chariots of Fire«, but Puttnam was inspired by Vangelis' synthesizer sounds.

The music to the title sequence became a classic, used at the 1984 Olympics and in countless heroic slow-motion sequences that followed.

At the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Games, Rowan Atkinson aka Mr. Bean did a wonderful parody of it (see video here).

The film music by Vangelis was awarded the Oscar in 1982 - as the first synthesizer score ever;

"I'll Find My Way Home"

When Rick Wakeman left the progressive rock band Yes in 1974, Vangelis applied for the vacancy.

But during the audition he is said to have irritated guitarist Steve Howe by philosophizing about the end of the electric guitar.

And anyway, he would rather not go on tour.

Yes singer Jon Anderson was still impressed by Vangelis, who received him in a kaftan and with a bow and arrow when he visited, saying he was a marksman.

Under the name Jon & Vangelis, the two recorded several albums in the early 1980s.

The biggest single hit was "I'll Find My Way Home", with which the duo also appeared on the English TV show "Top of the Pops" in 1982.

Donna Summer had a hit with a cover of Jon & Vangelis' State of Independence.

»Blade Runner-End Titles«

With the soundtrack to Ridley Scott's groundbreaking sci-fi dystopia »Blade Runner«, Vangelis succeeded in creating a blueprint for a synthesizer-driven genre sound.

The Netflix series Stranger Things is just one example of how this soundtrack's inspiration has lasted.

Curiously, the film music for the work, which was released in cinemas in 1982, was not released until 1994 - after years of bootlegs of it having been circulating.

The connection between Vangelis' music and space travel was permanent – ​​the organizations chose his compositions not only for fictional films, but also for real missions.

Vangelis recorded a new version of his choral symphony »Mythodea« for NASA's Mars mission in 2001.

»Conquest of Paradise«

When Ridley Scott was making a feature film celebrating the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' voyage, Vangelis was the logical choice for the soundtrack to 1492: Conquest of Paradise.

The fact that the appropriately bombastic main theme became the number one hit in the German single charts two years later, Vangelis owed less to the film and much more to the "gentleman boxer" Henry Maske, who accompanied his fights with "Conquest of Paradise" as accompanying music arrived (here a video from 1996 ).

The connection between sport and Vangelis' music was renewed again and again - in addition to the references to the Olympic Games, Vangelis also composed the official theme for the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea.

Feb

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2022-05-20

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