So as of September 30, so in less than a week, the first real Vangelis stand-alone album with just his classic synthesizers will appear since... who can even remember? Although some of the pieces from Alexander (many of them not on the album, or not on the album in their entirety) had great moments, I am of the opinion that Vangelis hasn't produced anything of truly great quality since the first El Greco came out in 1998, based largely on work that had already been composed a few years earlier.
The cues for Rosetta on YouTube and in other venues do not leave me with serious hope that we will be back to the golden era of the 1970s (Apocalypse of the Animals, Opera Sauvage, Heaven and Hell, Albedo, etc.) 1980s (Chariots of Fire, Blade Runner, Soil Festivities, Mask, Rapsodia, and a plethora of unreleased masterworks like Frankenstein and Beauty and the Beast) or 1990s (1492, Voices, El Greco). The great majority from each of these eras in the composer's output (Paris 1968, Ignacio, China, Antarctica, The City, Oceanic, and so much more I can't take space to list) was path-breaking. There is so much unreleased material in the master's vaults that I doubt we will ever hear. Something like the second disc of that Blade Runner anniversary edition back ten years ago already only whets the appetite. The weakness of the new pieces Vangelis composed at the time only makes one value that new pieces for the 1990s Blade Runner album all the more, let alone the original score. I personally consider Blade Runner -- in its entirety -- to be one of the deepest and most original film scores ever composed, which says a lot for someone who has loved Chariots of Fire since age 3. Betraying more of my personal tastes, I think Mask is Vangelis's greatest masterpiece overall. But at this level, it's just a matter of taste.
So now, having now reveled in the master's past greatness-- what to make of Rosetta? I withhold judgement until I have listened to the whole album, and it's hard to fathom it could be as horrible as the bombastic headache of Mythodea, the generally unremarkable second El Greco (film score), and other orchestrated nonsense we've suffered through in recent years, whenever we got anything at all. Vangelis, who was earlier so free with his disdain for orchestral music, should have never attempted to create music for orchestra. Yet even his synth work of late can't measure up. Attempting to listen to excerpts from Trashed on YouTube proved so boring that I had to put on 1492 just to remember why I liked this composer. My expectation for Rosetta is an intimate, lightly composed, reflective new-age score from a composer who, already in 1973, essentially helped to define the genre. Out of reverence for what this composer has contributed to my life, I'll give him a chance with Rosetta, and I won't expect what we once had with him. Here's hoping it's something listenable at last.
Has anyone heard this yet? Does anyone like it, and if so, what parts and why? Does anyone want to share their own "elegy" for this once-great composer?
Interesting post, and hard to disagree with much of it. I don't have all of his stuff, but the last thing I bought was 'Mythodea' which I didn't like at all and have barely listened again to it. I agree with your comments about his 70s and 80s output and also about the 'El Greco' album. From what I've heard so far from 'Rosetta', it hasn't been overly inspiring. I'd be interested to read some comments from anyone who has listened to the full album.
A new Vangelis album. Wow. Over the last few decades this has become a very rare occurrence compared to the good old days of the 1970s/early 1980s, Vangelis almost semi-retired now, it seems. So new releases are a big event to be savoured.
Rosetta is something of a curio in that it’s his first original album -as opposed to albums based on soundtrack work- to be released since Mythodea in 2001, and it is also a return to ‘proper’ old-style electronica soundscapes not heard since, oh, probably Oceanic in 1996 (Vangelis has veered towards classical-oriented or orchestral-sounding synth compositions for some time now).
Not that you can really ignore the feeling of soundtrack music here, as it is sort of the soundtrack to a film that exists in Vangelis’ head, being an album that tells the story of the ESA Rosetta mission to the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (three pieces were used a few years ago by the ESA to publicise the mission and accompany videos on Youtube). So while they are indeed original pieces, it all sounds rather like a soundtrack as opposed to the music Vangelis would have assembled for an album back in his Nemo years.
Its a lovely album with some genuine highlights- having heard it a few times now, I can say the first half of the album is excellent, some of it sounding genuinely fresh and exciting after so many years of Vangelis’ music sounding all of the same ‘soundscape’. Its nice to be surprised by a Vangelis release, and the fourth track ‘Exo Genesis’ is instantly recognisable as genuinely great Vangelis music. So while I miss the wild abandon and experimentation of his Nemo years, and the sophistication that was so incredible in every track of his Direct album, Rosetta seems a pretty solid release.
However, there is always that weight of expectation from there being so few releases these days, something Rosetta cannot really live up to. If Vangelis was releasing albums on an annual basis like in his early days, Rosetta would be a pretty good entry, but as it is it just feels a little ‘light’. I raised that comparison to Direct for a reason- Direct is a phenomenal piece of work, spanning all sorts of musical tastes and genres, richly dynamic and varied; Rosetta is something else entirely. It all sounds very ‘spacey’ and fairly ambient, and all the tracks link together well because they all seem cut from the same cloth, so to speak. So there isn’t as much variation as I would like, and the album seems over before it really seems to ‘ignite’.
So, isolated highlights aside, Rosetta is a ‘good’ Vangelis album while not a ‘great’ one. And I really wish Vangelis would either release some of the piles of stuff in his infamous vault or perhaps bring out more new stuff on a regular basis, because there is something a little sad about isolated releases like Rosetta after the heady days of earlier years. I’m not expecting every release to be his veritable ‘masterpiece’, and in truth after all those great albums like China and Soil Festivities and Direct and El Greco, the Greek maestro owes us nothing. Rosetta feels like a fragile jewel, and is endearing if only for that, but I know Vangelis can do more. Either he doesn’t feel he has anything to prove or doesn’t feel he even has to release his music anymore, but I find it frustrating, have done for years. Which is distracting from the music in Rosetta.
Still, Rosetta is a good album, and I realise it’s not really fair commentary on that album that I’m pining for the good old Nemo days when Vangelis was banging on his drums and bells and all manner of percussion instruments like some madman. Nemo is done and gone. But I miss it. I miss that old Vangelis. But I guess Rosetta will do.
Vangelis hasn't produced anything of truly great quality
That sums it up pretty well
Couldn't agree less. Maybe his music doesn’t appeal to you, but that's no reason to write such an obvious untruth.
'Rosetta' is a great album. It's beautiful and intriguing. Vangelis really comes back to the sounds, which we haven't heard from him since a very long time ago.
As an update, I have been very much enjoying the full album to Rosetta. It cannot be compared to his earlier works, as I suspected, but it is a very reflective, even intimate work. As others have commented, this is a particularly unified aural aesthetic, although not every track is of the highest quality. Philae's Descent is plain annoying to my ears. But personal favorites include Infinitude, Exo Genesis, Celestial Whispers, and Elegy. It is also charming to hear the same beeping "motif" for the Rosetta probe appear in Starstuff and then fade away in Return to the Void. In sum, this is a work I will continue to enjoy for years to come, but my yearning remains for a release of treasures from Vangelis's golden period.
I've been playing this a few times recently, and it's growing on me. It's nowhere near OCEANIC (Vangelis' last truly GREAT album), but it's far more engaging than something like MYTHODEA, which I can hardly get through. As you say, I'm confident I will get more and more pleasure out of this in the time to come.
I really like Rosetta, and I think it holds together from start to finish better than a lot of his studio albums (for me, most of his studio albums contain very inspired passages, but perfunctory stretches as well -- I like excerpts from many of them, but listen to few of them all the way through).
Rosetta also strikes me as a kind of "self-homage". It has lot of moments that recall earlier works (Albedo 0.39, and in particular Direct) and has a more retro, "80s" sound than much of his work from the past 15 years, yet at the same time a distinctive freshness.
I wish Vangelis was scoring the Blade Runner sequel, but Rosetta goes a long way in making up for that disappointment.
Below is - slightly shortened by me - translation of the review, which I wrote after the release of the CD for the Polish portal Onet. Beautiful album, btw, I keep coming back to it regularly. In addition, I managed to buy an autographed version
Finally! A Greek magician of electronic music returns with a new album worth every minute we had to wait for it.
It's not true that Vangelis was silent for a long time or he retired. Since the release of the soundtrack of "Alexander" in 2004 Vangelis treated us with a new album attached to the box set "Blade Runner Trilogy", soundtrack from the Greek film "El Greco" (not to be confused with the identically titled album from 90s), three compositions written for the Polish movie "Swiadectwo" and new music composed for the stage version of "Chariots of fire" - a film that earned him an Oscar in 1982. Maybe a little but still something.
Vangelis, if he wanted to, could release albums every month. What prevents him from it it's a business aspect that surrounds artists and label's greed to make money. According to some reports he has hundreds or even thousands hours of music in his archives. It's possible because he usually composes and records at the same time, at the first attempt.
The premiere of this album is a real treat. It consist of 13 compositions inspired by the mission of the European Space Agency's, Rosetta. The aim was to enter orbit lander Philae on the comet 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko and embedding it on the surface. The mission was a success.
"Rosetta" is a return to the sound the artist conquered the hearts of listeners in the 70s and 80s, while working in his famous studio Nemo. Some of the compositions arouse an irresistible combination of old achievements by Vangelis - "Albedo 0.06" could easily fit into the climate of the "Albedo 0.39", the title track would be great on "Opera Sauvage", jazzy experiments in "Exo Genesis; wouldn"t depress the value of "Spiral" and "Starstuff" would beautifully complement the landscape soundtrack from "Antarctica". This doesn't mean that Vangelis repeats himself here - listening to this music is just like a meeting with a long unseen friend.
"Rosetta", although created on synthesizers, is not artificial - on the contrary, it reflects the feelings of the mysterious, of which Einstein said that is the most beautiful thing we can discover.
Final "Return To The Void", during which the comet finally leave our solar system, and the mission of the probe ends, leaves us with a sense of contact with something unknown and mysterious.
Theoretically, there is no obvious hits although the sentimental melody of the title track might soon make it a classic and the majestic waltz "Mission accomplie (Rosetta's Waltz)" is quite catchy and simply great for humming. It's Vangelis in great form coming back with music not of this world. That his fans love most.
