Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou (Greek: Ευάγγελος Οδυσσέας Παπαθανασίου, 29 March 1943 – 17 May 2022), known professionally as Vangelis (Greek: Βαγγέλης), was a Greek keyboardist, composer, and producer of electronic, progressive, ambient, and classical orchestral music. He was best known for his Academy Award-winning score to Chariots of Fire (1981), as well as for composing scores to the films Blade Runner (1982), Missing (1982), Antarctica (1983), The Bounty (1984), 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992), and Alexander (2004), and for the use of his music in the 1980 PBS documentary series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage by Carl Sagan.
Born in Agria and raised in Athens, Vangelis began his career in the 1960s as a member of the rock bands The Forminx and Aphrodite’s Child; the latter’s album 666 (1972) is now recognised as a progressive-psychedelic rock classic. Vangelis first settled in Paris, and gained initial recognition for his scores to the Frédéric Rossif animal documentaries L’Apocalypse des Animaux, La Fête sauvage, and Opéra sauvage. He also released his first solo albums during this time, and performed as a solo artist. In 1975, Vangelis relocated to London where he built his home recording facility named Nemo Studios and released a series of successful and influential albums for RCA Records, including: Heaven and Hell (1975), Albedo 0.39 (1976), Spiral (1977), and China (1979). From 1979 to 1986, Vangelis performed in a duo with Yes vocalist Jon Anderson, releasing several albums as Jon and Vangelis. He also collaborated with Irene Papas on two albums of Greek traditional and religious songs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vangelis
It is the soundtrack for the 2007 movie ‘El Greco’ a Greek-Spanish-Hungarian coproduction directed by Yannis Smaragdis.
It is very important to not mistake this El Greco with the music Vangelis composed in 1995, Foros Timis Ston Greco, dedicated also to the Greek painter, published at first as a very limited luxury edition and re-edited later in 1998 commercially as El Greco (hence the confusion).
Unlike other times when the Hellene composer has used the movies he has worked for as mere excuses to elaborate his compositions, with almost no relation between images and music and hardly soundtracks in the common sense, in El Greco Vangelis takes a more conventional approach.
The album opens with the most memorable piece: a hugely inspired melody in the shape of a choral hymn. It will return in the album’s last track, that time played by a gloomy piano. Between both tracks lays out a faint ambient score, almost subdued. Romantic passages are tinged with sadness and choral themes are dark, even oppressive. The music is subtle, it never breaks the quiet pace. Emotion never comes through complexity or strength, but it is a restrained emotion. There are no recognisable themes, although Vangelis delivers his inspired melodic progressions from time to time. But they are always too brief (the longest track in the album does not reach the five minutes).
Although the music is played with synthesizeres, there’s a predominance of orchestral sounds, accompanied frequently by traditional instruments, linking the music to a concrete place and time. It helps, too, the inclusion of a traditional Cretan song and two other folk songs by Greek singers.
Vangelis wrote the music free of charge and published the album as a way to support the film project. The movie opened in Spain and Greece, becoming a financial success in the latter. The soundtrack was available to buy in both countries at the time, but soon became an item hard to find. Possibly today can only be found in Greece.
https://www.lodemasesruido.com/en/review/greco
Greek Composer, Greek Keyboardist, Modern Composer
