Vangelis: The Unknown Man

Track 2
A Child of Aphrodite

Formynx - Paris - Aphrodite’s Child - London 1943 -1974
“What matters is the sounds that come from within.”
Vangelis was born on 29th March 1943, in the busy port of Volos on the east coast of Greece. He was christened Evanghelos Odyssey Papathanassiou - the forename meaning “the bearer of good news” and the surname meaning “the son of the priest Athanasius”.
Incidentally, his surname is pronounced Papa (as in mama-papa), tha (a thick “th” as in Theodore), na (as in “nasty”), si (like “see”), ou (as in “soon”). Vangelis, which is pronounced Van (as “vantage”) gel (with a hard “g” as in “good”) is (as in “his”) and is derived from his first name Evanghelos.
His early years must have been difficult for his parents, indeed, it was a period of instability for Greece with the king in exile and the country under the tyrannical rule of Nazi German and Italian occupation.
He remembers his early years in a village near Athens:
“...a very, very beautiful village. With lots of flowers and gardens and sublime houses...”
Encouraged by his heroically-named father Ulysses, a painter, and his artistic mother, a singer, to whose side of the family he attributes his creative talents, he was a keyboard prodigy.
“...they are musical, not in a professional way, just musicians, not really ever performing but my mother’s side was quite talented in that area, painting, music and all that.”
Indeed, the family’s musical talents are also present in his brother Nikos who now works as a producer in the music industry in Italy.
For Vangelis music seemed instinctive from an early age, his career as a composer beginning at age four.
“When I started composing I was nearly four years old so I didn’t have any memory of music - it was too early. But I was sitting at the piano and using everything I could find in the house from the percussive point of view.”
“I was spending hours and hours creating sounds or playing whatever was coming into my head. I don’t remember myself not composing. It wasn’t something that came because of certain influences... As long as I remember, I always remember myself sitting at the piano.... I don’t ever remember being without music...”.
Like most children he played with kitchen utensils, plates, dishes but, even at this age, he experimented by stuffing chains, nails, glasses, paper and cutlery into the piano in order to adjust the sound it produced.
“I drove that piano crazy but I never smashed the strings or broke anything. It was all for the sound.”
His favourite “toy” and as far as Vangelis is concerned, his first synthesiser, was a radio. Playing with it he began expanding his existing spectrum of sound and musical language and to develop the unique style for which he is known today.
“At night I used to lie awake adjusting it to the interferences and those sounds drove me crazy. My mother wasn’t so happy though because I was only four years