EL GRECO

From the Spanish Renaissance, Dominikos Theotokopoulos aka El Greco worked as painter, sculptor and architect in Toledo at the beginning of 16th Century. This is NOT the soundtrack of the movie about his life directed by Yannis Smaragdis. Vangelis made the soundtrack but it happened about 10 years after.

the soprano Montserrat Caballe, who was guest of Freddy Mercury on "Barcelona", the anthem of the Spanish olympic games, sings in this album as well as the Greek tenor Konstantinos Paliatsaras.

The classical mood of this album is not so huge as in its follower Mythodea, also because the two singers are the only "human beings" other than Vangelis. The rest is electronic. Movement 4 sung by Montserrat Caballe is one of the most "classical" in this sense.

On this album Vangelis is back to the late 70s. The sounds used and the melodies are just lacking some more percussions and/or rhythm respect to that period, but the compositions are very good and not repetitive. There is the celtic flavour of Movement 5 for example, or the peaceful length of Movement 1, the Arabesque medieval Movement 7. It's a sort of anthology of the musical places visited by Vangelis during his career with the exclusion of the jazzy debuts.

It's a highly evocative album. I don't think it's classifiable as newage. Not properly a concept album is music based on a concept: the life of that Cretan artist of the Renaissance.

Released between the not very good Oceanic and the "classical opera" Mythodea, this album represents probably the last highlight in the huge production of the Greek keyboardist.