Imo, Vangelis brought the synthesizer from an experimental novelty to an instrument for composition. The two sounds I associate with him are the long brassy triangle with a steep envelope that we know from both Blade Runner and the accompaniment to the piano in the Chariots of Fire theme, and his effective use of chimes.
I have tickets for Olafur Arnalds next week, and there is a younger generation of composers like Arnalds, Frahm, Richter, Tiersen, Aphex/James, and even Reznor/Ross, who could not have avoided Vangelis' influence marrying the synth with classical techniques. He was a big part of what inspired me to start making synth music and more than a few of my tracks have homages to his work, and this note triggered a memory of playing the Chariots theme on piano as a really young child and it seemed to be everywhere at the time. A loss, but hard to mourn such an exceptional contribution as well.
> Imo, Vangelis brought the synthesizer from an experimental novelty to an instrument for composition. The two sounds I associate with him are the long brassy triangle with a steep envelope that we know from both Blade Runner and the accompaniment to the piano in the Chariots of Fire theme, and his effective use of chimes.
One of the most memorable parts of the Blade Runner soundtrack is the brass synth that casually tools around the blues scale. It sounds like an homage to old detective films and grounds the entire movie.
I wonder-- did that influence the intro to Dire Straits' Money for Nothing? It begins with a nice little synth bass and some arpeggiator bleeps and blorps, but there's a similar synth that similarly cruises around a blues scale for a bit.
Digression-- after listening to it again, I noticed that pentatonic synth business in Money for Nothing ends on a C two octaves above middle C which then does a quick upward glissando about an octave and a fourth. Did the keyboardist map the midi wheel to a perfect 11th to do that glissando? If so it sounds incredibly smooth: great job DX7, and/or early MIDI, and/or Alan Clark!
It’s hard to leave any discussion around the development of synth as an instrument without mentioning Tangerine Dream and Popol Vuh, but they were arguably more related to the prog-rock scene than as composers.
Incidentally, a former member of TH, Klaus Schultz also died last month. TG didn’t land any major soundtracks (like Jarre or Vangelis), but they were nonetheless highly influential , if only due to their prolific releases.
How would you compare Vangelis and Isao Tomita? Tomita was marrying synth with classical at about the same time or even a little earlier, to widespread acclaim and success.
A couple other names I think of when I think early serious synth work are Jean-Michel Jarre and Larry Fast. Where would you put them in synth history?
When I listen to Chronotope Project I hear the Vangelis influences. Along with Vangelis' inspiration to pursue such solitary and personal musical expressions.
Based on my listening and no other knowledge, he probably had quite the influence on Oneohtrix Point Never aka OPN aka Daniel Lopatin. He’s always been a big synth head and his OST scores really showcase his talents.
Blades runner had astonishing graphics as well, really haunting. Nowadays graphics like that are not that special but for time they were revolutionary. I just created some graphics of some animals in place of the legendary monologue of the movie.
There used to be some forum posts detailing the custom MIDI controllers and setup more, but it looks like a lot of it has been deleted or removed. I found this though:
Thank you for sharing those links! If Vangelis were a coder, he would have taken a Space Cadet Keyboard and extended it. 17 pedals...and on top of that, what appears to be a very broad custom notation / shorthand system. I can't tell if that notation acted more like keyboard macros or even more modifier keys.
My memory holds that magical feeling, when in the mindnight darkness and quietness of home, suddenly heard a gentle stream of silver bells and a beautiful, maybe melancholic, melody from a tiny radio speaker... with no announcement of the author or name of the song. It was then just used as a last song of the day.
Took me a veeery long time and other side of the globe to hear it again, again by chance, but with attribution in that case. Then some hours trying to locate the recording...
His work on blade runner just has this timeless magic to it. The sequel ends on his motif (tears in rain) for a reason too.
I also forgot to mention that chariots of fire is truly great too.
Some parts of his music haven't aged too well, but the stuff that hasn't is sorely missed in today's film scores. Even if Zimmer is brilliant he's not a poet.
He did some of his best (and worst) work while collaborating with Jon Anderson in my opinion. "Short Stories" was a great, quirky album in the late 70s. "Friends of Mr. Cairo" was dreck in the 80s.
Seriously, I can always tell a Hans Zimmer score without even having preknowledge that a film had hired him. Big, orchestral, boring score that repeats the same motifs he's been using for the last 50 years? Dude has one act.
He did know and was friends with the composer (also very talented), my guess is Vangelis just heard it at some point and picked up the theme's feel and basic style, and subconsciously copied it. It happens. His version is better imho.
To be more precise, he wrote the music which was used as the theme song for "Cosmos" -- it originally appeared on Vangelis's album "Heaven and Hell", five years before "Cosmos" came out. Apparently it was called Movement 3 from "Symphony to the Powers B", though on my old CD copy of the album it just appears in the middle of the track "Heaven and Hell Part 1". Really powerfully evocative music, takes me right back to being a 10 year old watching "Cosmos".
I think this piece shows the range of his musical expressiveness, apart from his virtuosity or synth programming skills. Just a piano passed through a flanger effect with some ambient sounds.
The electronic bleeps in that track are recorded from a handheld electronic game (Bambino UFO Master Blaster [1]). Talk about giving a whole new meaning to those sounds.
That title and that album cover: a woman wearing bikini and low-light glasses for snow, with the sun on the back and broken floating ice. A prediction of climate change from 1980?
The Four Horsemen from his band Aphrodite's Child really shows off his impressive prog-rock chops as well as showcasing a fantastic video of the band's persona (as well as a lot of Ouzo shots): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KCbqhJt16k
This was sad news indeed. I have just listened to his works again for the first time in years, after a random encounter with a guy wearing a faded Chariots of Fire T-shirt - next thing I knew, I spent several hours in my hotel room, listening to several albums to kill time and rekindle my on-and-off love affair with his music.
Today, as I flew home from working overseas for a few weeks, I listened to Opera Sauvage over and over again - then landing at my destination to see news of his passing.
Massive, epic talent. Did everything by ear and instinct, never learned to read or write music. Incredible feel for timbre, melody, and structure.
The DX7 synth used to have a ridiculous "chuff chuff chuff DING!" comedy steam train preset. It sounded terrible and was utterly useless except as a 10 second novelty.
He used it in one of his soundtracks - and somehow made it perfectly musical in that setting.
I love Soil Festivities, still decades after hearing it for the first time. Amazing album. Not to diminish his other work, but that one really stands out for me.
Also, if you don't know about it yet, check out his collaborations with Jon Anderson, as Jon & Vangelis, two awesome musicians at their peak.
Maaaaaan about the time Blade Runner came out I was a fourth grader fumbling with the Chariots of Fire record pretty much every day. That was the first record I remember associating the different reflections on the grooves with the length of the song. Pretty clear given that side 2 was all one song.
So many elementary school crushes I dreamt of to that album.
Didn't get whacked upside the head by Blade Runner until like 1989 or something and then went on that endless quest to find the version of the soundtrack that most matched what you hear in the movie (there was some legal crap about releasing the original music). Ended up with a few of the CDs floating around.
Oh no. I own all of his albums, including many bootleg issues. He was productive right up to the end, though; his last album came out in July of last year.
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion... I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... Time to die."
I’ve been listening mostly to his 70s proggish stuff lately, but the opening of Blade Runner still gives me goosebumps. It wouldn’t have been half the film it was without his music.
RIP. I remember watching the movie 1492 Conquest of Paradise, being wowed by the music, and then downloading the MIDI of the theme song on my 28.8k modem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd-DlMOLCY4 (not a MIDI).
I even saw the movie on Laser Disc, geez, ultimate 90's nostalgia trip.
I don't know much about Vangelis other than Chariots of Fire, he's Greek, and my neighbor when I was a kid loved the shit out of him. I assumed for a very long time Vangelis was an entire band and not just one person.
[+] [-] motohagiography|3 years ago|reply
I have tickets for Olafur Arnalds next week, and there is a younger generation of composers like Arnalds, Frahm, Richter, Tiersen, Aphex/James, and even Reznor/Ross, who could not have avoided Vangelis' influence marrying the synth with classical techniques. He was a big part of what inspired me to start making synth music and more than a few of my tracks have homages to his work, and this note triggered a memory of playing the Chariots theme on piano as a really young child and it seemed to be everywhere at the time. A loss, but hard to mourn such an exceptional contribution as well.
[+] [-] jancsika|3 years ago|reply
One of the most memorable parts of the Blade Runner soundtrack is the brass synth that casually tools around the blues scale. It sounds like an homage to old detective films and grounds the entire movie.
I wonder-- did that influence the intro to Dire Straits' Money for Nothing? It begins with a nice little synth bass and some arpeggiator bleeps and blorps, but there's a similar synth that similarly cruises around a blues scale for a bit.
Digression-- after listening to it again, I noticed that pentatonic synth business in Money for Nothing ends on a C two octaves above middle C which then does a quick upward glissando about an octave and a fourth. Did the keyboardist map the midi wheel to a perfect 11th to do that glissando? If so it sounds incredibly smooth: great job DX7, and/or early MIDI, and/or Alan Clark!
Edit: clarification
[+] [-] greggsy|3 years ago|reply
Incidentally, a former member of TH, Klaus Schultz also died last month. TG didn’t land any major soundtracks (like Jarre or Vangelis), but they were nonetheless highly influential , if only due to their prolific releases.
[+] [-] pmoriarty|3 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRj6G6RB7jc
[+] [-] tzs|3 years ago|reply
A couple other names I think of when I think early serious synth work are Jean-Michel Jarre and Larry Fast. Where would you put them in synth history?
[+] [-] Agamus|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnohara|3 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARkcu3J8OvI https://chronotope-project.com/bio
[+] [-] fetus8|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notacoward|3 years ago|reply
Along with Wendy Carlos and Jean-Michel Jarre, of course.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] spacemadness|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emporas|3 years ago|reply
https://www.instagram.com/p/CdwsowRoFT4/
[+] [-] bmitc|3 years ago|reply
https://youtu.be/GWggDMDhwIA
There used to be some forum posts detailing the custom MIDI controllers and setup more, but it looks like a lot of it has been deleted or removed. I found this though:
https://www.synthevolution.net/blog/2017/5/22/the-devils-wor...
[+] [-] yourapostasy|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zoomablemind|3 years ago|reply
Took me a veeery long time and other side of the globe to hear it again, again by chance, but with attribution in that case. Then some hours trying to locate the recording...
La Petite Fille de Mer
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P6qoTPhhv9w
Truly as if having a chanceful glimpse of a Mermaid.
Thank you for the magic, Master Vangelis. RIP.
[+] [-] nixass|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] riffraff|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bramjans|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mhh__|3 years ago|reply
His work on blade runner just has this timeless magic to it. The sequel ends on his motif (tears in rain) for a reason too.
I also forgot to mention that chariots of fire is truly great too.
Some parts of his music haven't aged too well, but the stuff that hasn't is sorely missed in today's film scores. Even if Zimmer is brilliant he's not a poet.
[+] [-] zeruch|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moron4hire|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coldtea|3 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Oti6lkzgH0
He did know and was friends with the composer (also very talented), my guess is Vangelis just heard it at some point and picked up the theme's feel and basic style, and subconsciously copied it. It happens. His version is better imho.
[+] [-] skyechurch|3 years ago|reply
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7FW_wOUUTT8
[+] [-] colomon|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sebastianconcpt|3 years ago|reply
:')
[+] [-] nonrandomstring|3 years ago|reply
So many memorable and now foundational techniques:
The gated saw string "chug" (Chariots of Tire)
Glissando space echo dives (Blade Runner)
Incredible synthetic guitar solos that inspired Jan Hammer
Analogue strings from the CS80 that melt like Mantovani.
Will be so sorely missed. I'm gonna play out all my collection in a huge Vangelisathon.
[+] [-] petre|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pantulis|3 years ago|reply
"Metallic Rain" comes to mind
[+] [-] gsoto|3 years ago|reply
"Memories of Green" (from the album "See You Later") https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW9D6agp794
I think this piece shows the range of his musical expressiveness, apart from his virtuosity or synth programming skills. Just a piano passed through a flanger effect with some ambient sounds.
The electronic bleeps in that track are recorded from a handheld electronic game (Bambino UFO Master Blaster [1]). Talk about giving a whole new meaning to those sounds.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sEOW8wAqG0
[+] [-] ffhhj|3 years ago|reply
That title and that album cover: a woman wearing bikini and low-light glasses for snow, with the sun on the back and broken floating ice. A prediction of climate change from 1980?
[+] [-] subculture|3 years ago|reply
The Four Horsemen from his band Aphrodite's Child really shows off his impressive prog-rock chops as well as showcasing a fantastic video of the band's persona (as well as a lot of Ouzo shots): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KCbqhJt16k
[+] [-] lb1lf|3 years ago|reply
Today, as I flew home from working overseas for a few weeks, I listened to Opera Sauvage over and over again - then landing at my destination to see news of his passing.
Sigh.
[+] [-] TheOtherHobbes|3 years ago|reply
The DX7 synth used to have a ridiculous "chuff chuff chuff DING!" comedy steam train preset. It sounded terrible and was utterly useless except as a 10 second novelty.
He used it in one of his soundtracks - and somehow made it perfectly musical in that setting.
[+] [-] greenhorn123|3 years ago|reply
Also, if you don't know about it yet, check out his collaborations with Jon Anderson, as Jon & Vangelis, two awesome musicians at their peak.
What a pity...
[+] [-] troyvit|3 years ago|reply
So many elementary school crushes I dreamt of to that album.
Didn't get whacked upside the head by Blade Runner until like 1989 or something and then went on that endless quest to find the version of the soundtrack that most matched what you hear in the movie (there was some legal crap about releasing the original music). Ended up with a few of the CDs floating around.
My world wouldn't be the same without his music.
[+] [-] stefanos82|3 years ago|reply
Αναπαύσου εν ειρήνη θρύλε, Rest in peace legend.
Καλό ταξίδι γίγαντα μου https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd-DlMOLCY4
[+] [-] genjipress|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnsanders|3 years ago|reply
I think my first encounter with his music was the Ernest & Julio Gallo wine commercials. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mES7lzR9uFE
Seems he should have been considerably older than 79.
[+] [-] DonHopkins|3 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoAzpa1x7jU
[+] [-] Saint_Genet|3 years ago|reply
https://youtu.be/P1jXmJmmj3o
[+] [-] netsharc|3 years ago|reply
I even saw the movie on Laser Disc, geez, ultimate 90's nostalgia trip.
[+] [-] yardie|3 years ago|reply
RIP amongst so many others, lately.
[+] [-] trh0awayman|3 years ago|reply