Vangelis - Themes (2018)

Evángelos Odysséas Papathanassíou was born on 29 March 1943 in Agria, Greece, and raised in Athens. At the age of twelve he developed an interest in jazz and rock music, and at fifteen he started to form school bands, acquiring his first Hammond organ at eighteen. In 1963, the newly named Vangelis and three school friends started a short-lived five-piece rock band called The Forminx, and after they split he spent the next two years mostly in the studio, writing and producing for other Greek artists. He also composed scores for Greek films, completing six over those two years, and in 1968 he moved to London in order to further his career. However, he was denied entry into the UK and so settled in Paris for the next six years, where he formed the progressive rock band Aphrodite's Child with Demis Roussos, Loukas Sideras, and Anargyros "Silver" Koulouris. Their debut single 'Rain and Tears' was a commercial success in Europe, and was followed by two albums, 'End of the World' in 1968 and 'It's Five O'Clock' in 1969. Vangelis conceived the idea of their third record as a concept album based on the Book of Revelation, and '666' is now hailed as a progressive rock masterpiece. If you haven't heard either the pop songs or '666' then do check them out as they are all classics of their genre. 
After increasing tensions during the recording of '666', the group split in 1971, with Roussos going on to have a number of hit singles in a long career as a pop singer, while Vangelis set up his own 16-track studio, Nemo Studios, and secured a record deal with RCA Records. He released some well-received electronic albums throughout the 70's, simultaneously scoring a number of films, including 'Ignacio' aka 'Do You Hear the Dogs Barking?' in 1975, and scores for some of Frederic Rossif's nature documentaries in 1976 and 1979. In 1980, Vangelis agreed to record the score for 'Chariots of Fire', winning an Academy Award for Best Original Music Score, and with his star now in the ascendant he was much sought-after to compose film soundtracks. In 1982 he scored 'Missing' for director by Costa-Gavras, which was awarded the Palme d'Or and gained Vangelis a nomination for a BAFTA Award for Best Film Music. In 1981, he collaborated with director Ridley Scott to score his science fiction film 'Blade Runner', expertly capturing the isolation and melancholy of Harrison Ford's character, Rick Deckard. In 1992, Paramount Pictures released the film '1492: Conquest of Paradise', also directed by Ridley Scott, and the score by Vangelis was nominated for Best Original Score – Motion Picture' at the 1993 Golden Globe awards, which then led to offers of work on the 1992 films 'Bitter Moon' and 'The Plague'. 
In 2002 he wrote the theme for the FIFA World Cup, and in 2018 he composed a tribute to Stephen Hawking, which was given out free to guests attending the Service of Thanksgiving at Westminster Abbey when Stephen Hawking's ashes were interred. After the internment some remaining copies were available from the Stephen Hawking Foundation in return for a charitable donation until stock ran out. For this collection of his film soundtracks I've deliberately omitted his four most famous works, on 'Chariots Of Fire', 'Missing', 'Blade Runner' and 'The Bounty', as they are already quite well-known, and can be found on an official collection of his soundtrack work. Instead I've concentrated on the rarer, early work for lesser-known directors, although I have included the theme to '1492' as it was too late to be included on the official collection and it's also one of my favourites. It's a fairly long album at 70 minutes, but it flows so well that I don't want to split it into two, so we'll just treat it as a CD.  

Track listing

01 Sex Power Part IX from 'Sex Power' 1970
02 Theme from 'Salut, Jerusalem' 1972
03 Generique from 'L'Apocalypse des Animaux' 1973
04 Theme from 'Amore' 1973
05 Theme from 'Ignacio (Do You Hear The Dogs Barking?)' 1975
06 Theme from 'La Fete Sauvage' 1976
07 Hymne from 'Opera Sauvage' 1979
08 Theme from the TV Series 'Cosmos' 1980
09 Theme from 'Antarctica' 1983
10 Theme from 'Sauvage et Beau' 1984
11 Theme from 'De Nuremburg A Nuremburg' 1989
12 Theme from '1492 :(Conquest Of Paradise)' 1992
13 Theme from 'Bitter Moon' 1992
14 Theme from 'The Plague' 1992
15 Theme from 'Cavafy' 1996
16 Anthem for the FIFA World Cup 2002
17 Theme from 'El Greco' 2007
18 Seize The Moment - The Stephen Hawking Tribute 2018