Description
Vangelis: The Collection 2CD
The 2xCD compilation was released in order to coincide with the 2012 Summer Olympics, where Vangelis’s music from Chariots of Firewas used. The compilation includes 31 track from his scores, solo albums and collaborations. The new unreleased track “Remembering” is a mix of ethereal chimes with jovial saxophone.
A pioneer of the synthesiser from its earliest days, Vangelis was making ambient music before the genre had been defined: New Age music before anyone coined the phrase: Chill-out Soundscapes before we knew how to chill anything but wine.
The collection compiles many of the best-known works from a remarkable career that began when he turned his back on pop superstardom in 1960s hitmakers Aphrodite’s Child, instead, intrigued by the many possibilities of the newly-invented synthesizer, he decided, by blending symphonic structures with electronic instrumentation, to create a unique new sound that, despite all efforts, still defies categorisation.
These two discs span the length and breadth of a solo career that began in 1970 with soundtracks for French nature documentaries, moved on to film and ballet scores and took the profolic partnership with with Jon Anderson from the rock titans Yes.
Disc one takes us from sweeping Conquest of Paradise, through the stirring Chariots of Fire to the stark soundscapes of Blade Runner and onwards to the hit-making collaborations with Jon Anderson of I Hear You Now and I’ll Find My Way Home.
Disc two offers listeners to the more ‘ambient’ side of Vangelis. Highlights include the minimalist piano melodies of Memories Of Green and the magical beauty of Ask The Mountains, featuring the angelic vocals of Stina Nordenstam. The album ends with a dreamlike new composition, Remembering, that seamlessly weaves a Sax solo into its mesmeric musical web.
Video: Vangelis with Jon Anderson-“I Hear You Now” 1979
Video: Vangelis-Chariots Of Fire 1982
Evángelos Odysséas Papathanassíou; (29 March 1943 – 17 May 2022), known professionally as Vangelis, was a Greek musician and composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, and 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 PBSdocumentary series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage by Carl Sagan.
Vangelis began his career working with several pop bands of the 1960s such as The Forminx and Aphrodite’s Child, with the latter’s album 666(1972) going on to be recognized as a progressive–psychedelic rock classic. Throughout the 1970s, Vangelis composed scores for several animal documentaries, including L’Apocalypse des Animaux, La Fête sauvage, and Opéra sauvage; the success of these scores brought him into the film scoring mainstream. In 1975 he set up his new 16-track studio, Nemo Studios in London, which he named his “laboratory”, releasing many solo albums including Heaven and Hell and China among others. In the early 1980s, Vangelis formed a musical partnership with Jon Anderson, the lead singer of progressive rock band Yes, and the duo released several albums together as Jon & Vangelis; he had previously joined Yes as their keyboard player, but left the group before recording any material with them.
In 1980, he composed the score for the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Score. The soundtrack’s single, the film’s theme, also reached the top of the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and was used as the background music at the London 2012 Olympics winners’ medal presentation ceremonies.
Tracklist:
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1. “Conquest of Paradise“ 1492: Conquest of Paradise 2. “Titles“ Chariots of Fire 3. “End Titles” Blade Runner 4. “Pulstar” Albedo 0.39 5. “Eternal Alexander” Alexander 6. “Anthem“ The Official Album of the 2002 FIFA World Cup 7. “Line Open” 1492: Conquest of Paradise 8. “To the Unknown Man” Spiral 9. “Hymne” Opéra sauvage 10. “Voices” Voices 11. “Up and Running” Blade Runner Trilogy 12. “Main Titles” Blade Runner 13. “Tears in Rain” Blade Runner 14. “So Long Ago, So Clear” Portraits (So Long Ago, So Clear) 15. “I’ll Find My Way Home” (Jon & Vangelis) The Friends of Mr Cairo 16. “State of Independence” (Jon & Vangelis) The Friends of Mr Cairo 17. “I Hear You Now” (Jon & Vangelis) Short Stories -
1. “Rachel’s Song” Blade Runner 2. “Missing” Missing 3. “Love Theme From Blade Runner“ Blade Runner 4. “Ask the Mountains” Voices 5. “Theme From Bitter Moon“ Bitter Moon 6. “Dream in an Open Place” Voices 7. “Twenty Eighth Parallel” 1492: Conquest of Paradise 8. “Memories of Green” See You Later 9. “La Petite Fille de La Mer” L’Apocalypse des animaux 10. “Song of the Seas” Oceanic 11. “Memories of Blue” Oceanic 12. “L’Enfant” Opéra sauvage 13. “Echoes” Voices 14. “Remembering” New track
Personnel:
- Vangelis — all instruments
- Raphael Preston — engineer
- Raine Shine — engineer
- John Walker — engineer
- Dan Massie – Mastering
- Vangelis Saitis – Engineer
- Andy Tribe – Project Manager
- Dmitris Tsakas – Saxophone
- Vangelis – Arranger, composer, primary artist, producer.
