Vangelis has been around for some time I first came across him when I heard Chariots of Fire. This video clip taken from Youtube is Conquest of Paradise from the movie 1492. Vangelis is a Greek composer. In an article I found online about him at allmusic.com I learned the following information: "Best known for his lush, Oscar-winning score to the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, Vangelis was among the most successful and admired electronic composers of his era. Born Evangelos Odyssey Papathanassiou in Volos, Greece, on March 29, 1943, his nascent musical talent was recognized at an early age, but he refused to take piano lessons, instead teaching himself."( Jason Ankeny,2016)
I have really started liking Vangelis music, he has many he has done and several for movie scores. The interesting thing about the piece I have posted here is that Vangelis has used a technique used by some artists in this genre called word painting. There is no translation to the words the chorus is singing in Conquest of Paradise, it is a made up almost sounds like it could be Latin but is not a language. Lisa Gerrard is another artist who did this in the song she sang which you probably have heard in the movie The Gladiator. Enya has also done this too on a couple of albums. Whilst it would be cool if there were actual words in language that is known, it is also a interesting way to do a song, have words but you don't need to worry about a meaning, there isn't a translation the words instead they just flow nice and work with the song and are often very beautiful. They can evoke a meaning without having one. Another group I have just started listing to is a group called ERA. I discovered this band whilst listening to one of Vangelis's songs on Youtube. I decided to give them a shot too. I found not only their music interesting and very pretty but the videos they have for their songs are interesting as well. I noticed they like to mix history themes in their videos. I still need to listen more to them to get a better idea of the group but I like what I have heard so far. They too like to use word painting, though they do it much more in fact exclusively. Vangelis will use actual lyrics in his work as well.
Reference:
Era picture, found on Google- CD cover. ( 2005)
Vangelis - conquest of paradise. Found on Mor.kh channel Uploaded: Apr 29, 2007
Jake Ankeny( 2016)
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