He wasn’t a Greek god, but his music was divine. Vangelis Odysseas Papathanassiou, better known as Vangelis, died overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday at the age of 79. According to reports in various Greek media, he had been admitted to a hospital in France due to COVID-19.
Updated yesterday at 1:44 p.m.
A big loss for the musical world.
Prolific composer, keyboard wizard, pioneer of electronic music and major figure in film music of the last 50 years, Vangelis was notably awarded an Oscar for his soundtrack of the film Chariots of Fire in 1982, and Golden Globe nominations for the music of blade runner in 1983 and 1492: Christopher Columbus in 1993.
Active until very recently, he launched Juno to Jupiter in 2021, a work of sidereal character.
Less known in Greece than the immense Mikis Theodorakis, Vangelis was nevertheless considered a national treasure because of his international influence for more than half a century.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis also paid tribute to him on social networks on Wednesday. “Vangelis Papathanassiou is no longer with us. The music world has lost [l’artiste] international Vangelis,” the politician said on Twitter.
Mr. Mitsotakis also recalled that Vangelis’ middle name was Ulysses. “For us Greeks, this means that he began his great journey on chariots of fire. From there, he will always send us his notes. »
Son of Aphrodite
Born in 1943 in Volon, Thessaly, this self-taught musician began his career in Greece in the early 1960s with the “yéyellenique” group The Forminx, before experiencing his first European successes with the very psychedelic Aphrodite’s Child.
This trio of Greek musicians, who also revealed singer Demis Roussos, went into exile in France in 1968, after being turned back at the British border. Its short existence will be punctuated by several hits (Rain and Tears, It’s Five O’Clock, End of the World) and will end in 1971 with the apocalyptic double album 666now considered a masterpiece of progressive rock.
While Demis Roussos took the commercial route, Vangelis immersed himself in instrumental music and established himself as a pioneer of the electronic scene, along with Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream and Jean-Michel Jarre.
Settled in London in the mid-1970s, where he opened a studio, the musician puts on albums with synthetic sounds like Spiral, Baubourg Where Albedo 0.39as well as music for wildlife documentaries (The Wild Party, wild opera) which confirm his talent for atmospheres, between rhythmic and contemplative music, a mixture that he will explore all his life.
In the early 1980s, Vangelis definitely established himself as a major artist of his time. First in the cinema, with the soundtracks of Chariots of Fire and blade runnerbut also in pop, with the success of Friends of Mr. Cairo, which he produced with Jon Anderson, the former singer of the group Yes. The circle is complete, since a few years earlier, the composer had refused to join the English prog formation to replace Rick Wakeman, for fear of losing his creative freedom.
In orbit
Among other notable collaborations, Vangelis produced the album odes for the Greek actress Irène Papas (1979) and produced film music for Costa-Gavras (missing), Roman Polansky (gall moons) and Oliver Stone (alexander).
But since the 2000s, we especially remember his contributions to space exploration. In 2001, he signed the theme of Mythodeafor NASA missions to the planet Mars, and that of the probe Rosetta, launched in 2012 by the European Space Agency. Without forgetting Juno to Jupitera digital and interactive concept work, put online in 2021.
More down to earth, we also owe him the anthem of the Soccer World Cup in 2002. Forgettable.
A sacred monster, Vangelis was also a rare public figure. We keep the image of an inaccessible bearded man, recluse in his studios to explore the universe of sounds. In recent years, he said he no longer wanted to go on stage, for fear of a shock with his audience, who would have inevitably claimed his old successes.
Despite his notoriety, his relationship to the music industry was that of a marginal, far from the star system.
His music could have a pompous, grandiloquent side, errors of taste. Some of his albums have aged less well. But Vangelis’ odyssey is no less special. Few composers have so successfully reconciled the commercial and the avant-garde, the emotional and the scholarly, the earthly and the cosmic, the familiar and the exotic. Genius maybe not, but a monument yes. It was the Parthenon of electronic music.