Saturday 11 April 2009
Tune of the Day: El Cóndor Pasa
by Daniel Alomía Robles
This is possibly the best-known Peruvian song worldwide, due to a cover version by Simon & Garfunkel in 1970 on their Bridge Over Troubled Water album, which is called “El Condor Pasa (If I Could)”.
Although the origins of the song “El cóndor pasa” (“The condor flies over”) date back to the age of the Incas, the popular form of the melody we hear today was composed in 1913 by Daniel Alomía Robles for the finale of his zarzuela El cóndor pasa. In this musical play, the Andean condor stands as a symbol of freedom in a conflict between a Peruvian miner and his European boss.