Vangelis: El Greco Box Set

I wonder how many of you bought this monster?

Despite being a Vangelis fan, I had initially missed that the album in here is totally different from Vangelis' earlier release with the same title. Doh!

Well, I was digging around Ebay the other night, and a guy in Scotland was selling a copy for £40 or so. Thought why not?

It just arrived, and what can I say? Forget the contents for a moment, the box itself is an absolute monster. Heavy as heck with a perspex edge which gives us a cut-out logo. It's really over-sized t00, I'd say 14 inches square. Big!

Inside you get a hardcover book format for all the media: Vinyl, CD, and a DVD of the movie.

Beneath that is an artbook from the Taschen range.

Limited to 1000, this one was number 596.

I've no use for the Vinyl, but there's really no way to sell that on - the "cover", is glued to the box itself. You'd either have to sell the hardcover for the media entirely, or tear the sleeve from the book - thereby damaging it.

All in all though, if the price is right, this is quite something to look at. Not sampled the music yet, but reviews are positive. There's got to be at least one other Vangelis fan out there who has this.

 

Congrats! It looks a really nice set to own and obviously ‘The Greek’ being special as someone highly regarded by Vangelis.

I don’t have a copy of El Greco, so something which I must remedy soon.

 

Alright. Almost a year later, and i'm returning with an update.

I spent last night playing the two CD's of El Greco, so just a little thought.

Firstly, the single CD release of El Greco clocks in at around 72 minutes. It's a majestic piece that almost has the ambiance of a slow Soil Festivities (love the repeating theme, or pulse, in the first track). The pacing of this version doesn't change very much. It's a wonderful sweep through the inspirations, a huge wash of color.

The second CD - from the box set - is a slightly different animal. For one, it's around 42 minutes in length. The music is wholly different. It's a soundtrack to the movie (which comes in the box) and plays like one. The tracks are (obviously) shorter. While the first CD has some choral work, the soundtrack has some vocalists (nothing in English). It is excellent, though I'd say not essential. If I had to reach for one of other of the discs, I'd go with the original CD. That said, the music in this box is totally worth having, if only people could get it as a standalone title (I'm not aware of this being available that way).

It's taken me a year to get to this and give it some time. I'm glad I did last night. Now I've heard it, I can go in knowing what I'm getting. The Vinyl album is the soundtrack version. It's very nice music, and Vangelis fans will want it. It would have been nice is he had remastered this and put it out on its own.

 

Youre saying that despiste the name being the same "el grego" this is a totally diferent album from the one Vangelis already had? (That first el Greco was a great album by the way).

 

Correct - it's different music. A bit of ahead scratcher, isn't it?

 

Not even based on the early album like diferent versions? Wow. At least he could have named it El Greco II. Insane.

 

Yeah - it's odd that (as far as I know) the only way to get this version is to buy the box. It wasn't cheap!

Looking at the CD's, the original (72 minute version) is from 1998, while the Soundtrack is from 2007. The soundtrack also has a couple tracks written by others - although they're adaptations of folk songs, and they don't bounce you out of the Vangelis vibe (Vangelis arranges and produces those tracks).

The Soundtrack CD has a bar code: 0602517606708. Perhaps it's appeared elsewhere and I'm just not aware?

I'll post some pictures in a moment.

 

Now im getting it. This second El Greco is a soundtrack for a movie. That makes sense. It would have been ridiculous to call it El Greco II as i sugested.
is a little bit confusig, maybe people should start to call the second album El Greco Soundtrack to avoid confusions.
Thanks for youre pictures, they made everything clear for me, and sorry my ignorance but i have been out of Vangelis works for a while, i have already eard of this second El Greco but never gave much atention to the subject.
Its a shame this only comes on an expensive box. Dont understand why artists seems nowadays to make dificult for fans to listen to their music. Absurd.

 

No problem, perhaps I wasn't being clear.

Truth be told, *I* was as confused as you were. In fact, I couldn't quite believe there was a second El Greco album by Vangelis out there. This was especially confusing when it wasn't readily available.

Somewhere along the line I decided to get this box. I was on a big Vangelis kick at the time, buying all the new (then) remasters. This got lumped in with them. It's only now that I actually got around to playing the disc to compare.

I remain very much on the fence about this box set. The book you can buy on its own from Taschen, so that's not unique. The movie you can get elsewhere. That leaves the Vinyl (which is of no use to me), and the 45 minute or so CD. I'm more than happy with the CD.

Of course, you also get the box itself, which is mammoth. Very very nice, and high quality. But given the rest of the contents - I don't know, it's a bit underwhelming. I guess at the end of the day, I only ever wanted the music on CD - the rest of the stuff is just not compelling....