I'll write some more about my Vangelis connection later, but a question first:
While JUNO TO JUPITER now becomes his last studio album, what is his last film score? IMDB is not always reliable in this case; there are a lot of shorts and documentaries in recent years, and I'm not sure which of them had original music and which simply used his existing music. Also, there's that news bit about Vangelis working on a new Oliver Stone documentary about nuclear energy, whose spotting session allegedly took place last fall. Anyone know anything more about that?
A great shame - he was a genius at what he did and like many here I grew up with his music.
Conquest of Paradise was also my first score purchase at the age of somewhere around 19 / 20. Little did I know then that would spark an interest and be the first of nearly 3000 score CDs.
Themes is also a great album - expertly crafted into a joyous, emotional journey. He was a true visionary with an extraordinary imagination.
I'll write some more about my Vangelis connection later, but a question first:
While JUNO TO JUPITER now becomes his last studio album, what is his last film score? IMDB is not always reliable in this case; there are a lot of shorts and documentaries in recent years, and I'm not sure which of them had original music and which simply used his existing music. Also, there's that news bit about Vangelis working on a new Oliver Stone documentary about nuclear energy, whose spotting session allegedly took place last fall. Anyone know anything more about that?
His last feature film score may have been 2014's TWILIGHT OF SHADOWS. I don't know how much music he wrote for the film though.
I've always admired and loved composers with a distinctive style and voice, and coming from the 'electronic world', this could maybe be even more difficult to maintain, but Vangelis managed it with ease. His themes and music were both beautiful and unique. He leaves behind an impressive body of work, in film, instrumental and song.
Daniel Pemberton: "Vangelis was originally going to score Ridley's THE LAST DUEL. That's probably a secret but fuck it. I was super vibed to see what that would have been like but it all got too complicated and never happened. Shame.
HGW did a stellar job though. Massively underrated film."
A great shame - he was a genius at what he did and like many here I grew up with his music.
Conquest of Paradise was also my first score purchase at the age of somewhere around 19 / 20. Little did I know then that would spark an interest and be the first of nearly 3000 score CDs.
Themes is also a great album - expertly crafted into a joyous, emotional journey. He was a true visionary with an extraordinary imagination.
RIP
I love that Themes album, I've probably listened to it a hundred times. It was the first Vangelis album I bought, think I then bought Chariots and Conquest of Paradise a few years later when it was released and then started on his studio albums and the Jon Anderson stuff. I also like the Portraits compilation as well.
I urge everyone to look on YouTube for Cavafy's poem Ithaca read by Sean Connery with music by Vangelis; I can't put the link here but it's an easy search. Never officially released on disc it's a wonderful, powerful piece of sweet melancholy perfect for what we are all going through as we mourn the maestro's passing.
Several years ago I was cleaning out my dad's soundtrack collection and came across a Vangelis score I had never heard before, Antarctica. I ended up putting it on later that day for a drive into the mountains with my boys and since then, about 10 years ago, it's become a little tradition when we drive up into the mountains, they ask to hear the theme song from Antarctica. We don't do the whole album, but we almost always listen to that first track.
That's my favourite score of his. I have the soundtrack and the movie. It was perfect to represent the cold harshness of Antarctica. And set a much better tone against a darker storyline than the Disney remake "Eight Below".
I could never get on with Chariots Of Fire. Heard it too many times at the start of running races.
Several years ago I was cleaning out my dad's soundtrack collection and came across a Vangelis score I had never heard before, Antarctica. I ended up putting it on later that day for a drive into the mountains with my boys and since then, about 10 years ago, it's become a little tradition when we drive up into the mountains, they ask to hear the theme song from Antarctica. We don't do the whole album, but we almost always listen to that first track.
That's my favourite score of his. I have the soundtrack and the movie. It was perfect to represent the cold harshness of Antarctica. And set a much better tone against a darker storyline than the Disney remake "Eight Below".
I could never get on with Chariots Of Fire. Heard it too many times at the start of running races.
I can't stand the Chariots of Fire theme or the Jaws theme. They were played to death on radio and in live sporting events. Love the rest of those albums though. And before anyone asks, I wasn't saying Vangelis wrote the Jaws theme!
Several years ago I was cleaning out my dad's soundtrack collection and came across a Vangelis score I had never heard before, Antarctica. I ended up putting it on later that day for a drive into the mountains with my boys and since then, about 10 years ago, it's become a little tradition when we drive up into the mountains, they ask to hear the theme song from Antarctica. We don't do the whole album, but we almost always listen to that first track.
That's my favourite score of his. I have the soundtrack and the movie. It was perfect to represent the cold harshness of Antarctica. And set a much better tone against a darker storyline than the Disney remake "Eight Below".
I could never get on with Chariots Of Fire. Heard it too many times at the start of running races.
I can't stand the Chariots of Fire theme or the Jaws theme. They were played to death on radio and in live sporting events. Love the rest of those albums though. And before anyone asks, I wasn't saying Vangelis wrote the Jaws theme!
Agreed. Chariots Of Fire, Jaws, the Imperial March...just so overplayed.
He was definitely one of the masters, and a favorite of mine. But I confess I didn't warm to his music initially.
Chariots of Fire struck me as a nice tune, but I soon tired of hearing it from every radio station 24/7. Even Blade Runner didn't even make much of an impact first -- the theater was having sound issues and the audio was muffled, so it was impossible to appreciate the score.
It was, of all things, Missing that really caught my ear. That score really really knocked me over -- not just the music itself, but the way it enhanced and uplifted the film.
A TV airing of Chariots of Fire a couple of months later also left me very impressed. That score is far-more than a "tuneful earworm". It gives the film an energy and passion which a more traditional orchestral score probably would not have provided. Without Vangelis Chariots of Fire would have been more like something you'd see on "Masterpiece Theatre".
When I eventually saw Blade Runner again I was overcome by both the film and the music. To this day I consider it Vangelis' best work, but my enjoyment of the film was always tempered by the non-release of the score -- 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!
I was soon raiding the record stores for Vangelis albums -- which, while on one hand a thrill, was also fraught with frustration. His music was so eclectic, I never really knew what I was in for. Sometimes it was melodic and harmonious (Opera Sauvage, L'Apocalypse des Animaux), sometimes rock-influenced (like the RCA albums) sometimes avant garde (Beaubourg, Invisible Connections). And course there was the fruitless search for the non-existent Bounty album.
But following Vangelis' work has been a rewarding trip. For someone who never learned to read music, he was quite a versatile artist, with a unique vision. The world is a better place for his having lived among us.
Vangelis's wonderful end title for 'The Bounty'..........begins with the final 42 seconds of the film which you may wish to avoid if you've never watched the film.
Just sublime, a perfect climax to the film and, for me better than the version on the 'Themes' album.
I’ve been trying to let this all sink in, as this is Horner-level grief for me. As I said earlier, Vangelis is one of the most important musical figures in my life, and in terms of electronic music in general, he’s second only to Jean-Michel Jarre on my alltime top list.
It’s been a rough time for us fans of vintage electronic music, i.e. electronic composers who came to fame in the 70s.
Klaus Schulze passed away just a couple of weeks ago.
Edgar Froese passed away a few years ago, and Tangerine Dream no longer has any of the original members left. Guys like Franke, Schmoelling and Baumann are still around, but not very active. Haslinger fortunately is, but his old-school stylings, like HALT AND CATCH FIRE, are few and far between.
Ralf Hütter is the only one left of the original crew in Kraftwerk, now that Schneider has passed.
And now Vangelis.
So please, Jean-Michel, keep in there for many years to come. You certainly look 20 years younger than your actual age, so that’s a good sign. Also Moroder, Faltermeyer, Hammer & co.
So, to Vangelis. I’ve been thinking what my first exposure was. In the late 80s, long before I got into film music, I was exploring electronic music like a madman. Jarre was my no. 1 (still is), but I looked into other things as well. I hung out with a neighbouring kid at our summer house in Denmark, and he had a cassette collection called “Synthesizer’s Greatest Hits” (over several volumes), performed by Dutch synth wiz Ed Starink. On one of the cassettes, there was a version of Vangelis’ bluesy track “Dervish D” from his 1977 album SPIRAL. Far more funky than the original, and I prefer this version to this day. But it opened up my whole pathway into Vangelis.
A few years later, I discovered – like most people – the brilliant, organic score to BLADE RUNNER (which later became one of my analysis objects in my university thesis), and from there on it was a never-ending journey. I’m not a Vangelis completist, but I have about 50 albums/scores and have heard almost everything he’s done since the early Aphrodite’s Child beginnings.
In October-2020, I prepared a massive 3-hour podcast episode (in Norwegian) about Vangelis that had two other Vangelis fans and colleagues as guests. In so doing, I also created a top 20 of his works, film and studio albums combined. I’ll get to that towards the end of this super-long post.
But in writing an obituary for a site just now, I’m struck by two properties, in particular, that defined him. One was was the intuitive, almost improvisation-like playing which was later cut to editing, that made the marriage between film and music almost appear as tableaux in the films themselves – whether it was MISSING, 1492, ALEXANDER, CHARIOTS OF FIRE, BITTER MOON, THE BOUNTY or whatever.
The second is the almost direct connection between his inner inspiration (he was a very spiritual person) and the fingers hitting the keys of the keyboard (especially his beloved Yamaha CS-80). It’s very much the old-school, Romantic notion of the artistic Genius on display.
While most people gravitate towards his 70s works (and a little bit of the 80s), my big love is actually the vastly underrated 90s efforts when he ventured into the much-derided genre of ‘new age’. OCEANIC is my alltime favourite studio album of his, and I also adore VOICES. Screw the naysayers! ?
Fortunately, even though he has now passed, there is still a lot of music that needs to be released. I’m dreaming of a Frederic Rossif box set, for example. So hopefully, we have many “new” Vangelis efforts to enjoy in the years to come.
Speaking of Rossif, as L’APOCALYPSE DES ANIMAUX is currently playing in the background (with one of his best tracks of all time, “La Mort du Loup”), I’d like to share my top 10:
1. BLADE RUNNER 2. L’Apocalypse des Animaux 3. Oceanic 4. 1492 5. Voices 6. Bitter Moon 7. Antarctica 8. Opera Sauvage 9. The City 10. The Bounty
But in writing an obituary for a site just now, I’m struck by two properties, in particular, that defined him. One was was the intuitive, almost improvisation-like playing which was later cut to editing, that made the marriage between film and music almost appear as tableaux in the films themselves – whether it was MISSING, 1492, ALEXANDER, CHARIOTS OF FIRE, BITTER MOON, THE BOUNTY or whatever.
The second is the almost direct connection between his inner inspiration (he was a very spiritual person) and the fingers hitting the keys of the keyboard (especially his beloved Yamaha CS-80). It’s very much the old-school, Romantic notion of the artistic Genius on display.
Very well put, Vangelis was very unique in his use of electronic instruments, he created a very living, breathing sound, full of improvisation, amazing and inventive soundscapes that were unlike any others. His music eschews easy categorization, a fusion of classical, jazz, ambient, experimental, and pop elements, always excellently "orchestrated", because regardless whether it was all electronic or with integrated acoustic and vocal elements, every sound was precisely "right" and could have been no other. BLADE RUNNER is one of my all time favorite film scores, but I also love his non-film works. A great talent and unique musical voice has left us.
Blade Runner, the New American Orchestra version, was one of the first soundtracks I bought as a kid. It was very clear then that the score was a breed apart. It still is, from everything else.
A short time later, perhaps my biggest soundtrack disappointment was buying The Year of Living Dangerously lp after seeing the film and discovering the track that I loved from the movie was not on there! Of course it was not Jarre at all, but Vangelis, from his Opera Sauvage album. Picking that up was an easy fix.
In 94 I was away with friends for a whole summer in the states, and I came upon the new Blade Runner release in a store. We were all into Aphex Twin and Autechre at the time, and the onset of a new craze in electronic music, and that cd got played A LOT that summer. Everyone loved it. It's still the copy I play today, and it brings up many memories, along with its -still very clear- visions of the future.
