![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ZEvAxU_Z_yRJuk7w2LPvW763koyi9u3OBQ9rdPimCOVc-Pxvq0eFZyoxfYMB23qAEGZw6vt6eUnHKgf6CKaPGNovnhvE-ep08yzvAcCpFGA8Oihf3iwcSPkisW8w2lkhuH4ee6LJiMoEKS6YIQg3H2g6U3ACtt-wbO2UyYubd9GIxF9qmMdCvjAU/s1600/vp3.jpg)
Is he the most visible and globally-beloved musician in the history of Greece? If there were ever a man to challenge Aristocleides (or Demis Roussos, or Nana Mouskouri), here he be.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie4Rca5eMrLmegBB91l_BD_K4mahvuYfwZbTG6zxwhROtIkJVtnEGZ8NKTchFUDbGX6vWgeoyzXjTA8K14uqHKf5e0Ho-f1-_mExiu1s4i4nGkVCGYhwyvqX4LTF9-PbXONH4JzhKeBK0ZMgmEx6YgppqZ0H79X18DFBCdobs51JA5-6YEef6TQYlg/s320/vp4.jpg)
To call his music Romantic with a capital R would be like referring to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as merely Tall.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQEwYXbD4mMrwgC4SfdHQHfYg2MgkFu0QcH6djjs14NG4HqsFMH03uWUrj501irwi3LjI-_gkLSF8l9RBHgk8N7siZ_zLJw_39BvSrLc-s7G3Sw0IUidbsPblLhHlter9qEIUTeZPJmLp7zB6GTHc-rgn4JvaYKRa9Nzj6Ip7FV2uTJ8lXTGtwE-uB/s320/vp5.jpg)
Beginning musical life breaking through with a still-revered Greek Prog Rock band called Aphrodite's Child, if he'd have stopped there he might yet be a cult figure of significance.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRY-BIWEHY0GY3ipNGDazuI1Wn4bQ1KOJqYaXOsIX5hNTnM_Vb2rUURoazKmEGGZAlGm5FGQ8jDTA1pI94ZbFhNQDIiukCIQsQrXZZCCy_8uv3qcSA6jkJVbFfV_Cypbge4nV6zi1g_J-51Py810i75vqHEXJY8Xe3V7pT8iR-XGKqVB12ZyIV3m4p/s320/vp7.webp)
Almost joining the even-more-legendary Yes in the mid-1970s, that close call led to a lifelong association with the primary singer of that band, and produced not a few huge smash hits.
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But it was when he began to score films that he really exploded into nearly a cultural phenomenon in his own right.
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Obviously his Oscar-winning music for Chariots of Fire is his most notorious single piece -- someone, somewhere, is running along a beach right now and humming it -- but he soundtracked so many movies and TV things, it's almost unquantifiably immense to keep track of it all.
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Indeed, in the folder alongside today's concert I have placed one of his many unreleased scores, this one for a TV documentary from 1981 called L'Arbre de Vie.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhehoqRQapGptmRWBnSOGv2LOxAPLdwugOS-5-CJ_NDPzDdKYXOSoSRWP0TV_laf9GDX-dDfexWPVGQrywJAA1oidKuOWuJ_TbwORGSKptvM9_mnXyoR6t0NFeGncbgrioAAVVE_ZDqkUPArOBxNHZAh22TOjZGaeCR5ehD7vObABDUsIAF5_2xgEAT/s1600/vp11.jpg)
If I had to describe the music of Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou -- known to us all simply as Vangelis -- I'd say it was somewhere in the lush, verdant imaginary landscape between the electronic tone-poetry of Cluster's Hans-Joachim Roedelius and the triumphant Romanticism of Benjamin Britten.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7ghhrNtWn7OKrXK9KhNGtwR-pPohyJYcAqUkh1JMu9QiyzBNL5B9KvrojqQ4wmEDbV9cm0hkF4FCUYIBbDHZ1o_mqooRnX0oKBBTR3gsjWCdHoTEX4AfQQvBam6og55__MV7kDyMTLREMaQIKa8oPdsACuNIy75yJ1dmEhwpO0pPXfnHai-8aM9xZ/s1600/vp12.jpg)
His career and works are the stuff of deserved legend, so I'll not say more. He almost made it 80, but passed away last May before he got there.
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The 79 years that preceded his going were wrought of such sumptuous and unforgettable sounds, it seems clear he will never be forgotten.
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Sounds of sumptuousness such as these, captured in an outdoor event in Holland at the start of the 1990s, and accompanied by some equally-as-gargantuan guests to boot.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTb3s97X6OIuTg1VZeJJocvcp8HsiNh_UxZ6OZZkrXNKi6Rw0O9ySKSUGLDIRU62ZBuhI-c5TanH9vOVq6BiQTfr7h71Qm6VDp8b88Ldc2vA2TMiT8iswky0t4ORQuP7WNMewfTStUF_fhNrxeNCpJMeC64Cx7t05XTy7uritF96zN8DylJ2P-Ct6W/s320/front2.jpg)
378 MB FLAC/direct link