Mythodea! A Brilliant Work of Art!

If the Masters of Antiquity could hear this (especially Pythagoras!) they would think it was the Rapture of Olympus!

It's by no consequence that Vangelis writes music in a very
"scientific & mathematical" manner. This was the purpose of NASA wanting to use his music to attract possible intelligent life forms from outer space!

For me, Mythodea was more of a Spiritual experience! The Gods were listening and the marbles of the Temple of Zeus literally came to life! And was it by coincidence that the planet Mars was directly aligned over the city of Athens on that night?

Bravo! Fantastico! A must see DVD!

~Druansha

Pretending to be the next Wagner

Vangelis is, without doubt, the best electronic new age composer ever appeared. But this doesn't neccesserily mean that he has the ability to compose like Wagner or Saint-Seans; I mean compose classically; unfortunately somebody made him believe that he can! :)
Two albums; "El Greco" and this one, "Mythodea" in which Vangelis tries to show to his audience that he can compose great opera tunes are really the worst pieces of music he ever wrote; in my opinion those efforts turn to be very very boring and ordinary orchestra play (altough "El Greco" was recorded mostly on sytnhs, it had the feeling of an orchestra). The world doesn't need classical composers that imitate 200 years ago's musical techniques. Vangelis come from a futuristic background, one of the innovators of serious synthesizer music and this makes the effort more absurd (Remember Marinetti : "Burn the Museums!").
Vangelis cannot write good classical music (and I think such a thing is not possible in 21th century) and must be aware of that. But his true style, combining classical harmony with electronic innovation is awesome, but from "1492 Conquest of Paradise" on he left his true style to be a "classical star" :)
(By the way, even I didn't much like "1492..." because of the evident commercialist approach and fast production, it was one of the last albums that "Vangelis style" could be differantiated with "Oceanic" and "Voices")
But the most important problem here; in one of his interviews (he began to give interviews about the pieces in his albums and this is not a good sign)Vangelis told that he wrote most of "Mythodea" about 10 years ago. This means, he didn't write the pieces with Mars or Space in his mind; and this means Nasa ordered music for their project, and Vangelis simply picked some unused tracks and ideas from his store. His audience deserves much more creativity these days.
This album is by no means "Vangelis". So check out; "Heaven & Hell", "Beauborg", "Soil Festivities" to hear what this guy is capable of in experimental electronica and;
"The City" "Direct" "Voices" "L'Apocalypse Des Animaux" and "Bladerunner" for electronic-new age.
I hope he decides to compose electronica again in his next record.

Wow....what a masterpiece!

Yes, this CD is different from Vangelis' other works. With a full orchastra, a choir, and two top sapranos, Vangelis has expressed so much of his vision and emotion in this album that I have never heard before. Rich and beautiful! I have listened to it so many times. I wish this album is recorded in SACD and DVD-audio! Such a masterpiece deserves the best sound quality.