El Condor Pasa

Composed in 1913 by Daniel Alomia Robles, El cóndor pasa is based on the copyright-free Peruvian folk song Soy la paloma que el nido perdió (“I am the dove that lost the nest“). Julio Baudouin y Paz added another text to the melody entitled El cóndor pasa, which was first performed in Lima on December 19, 1913 at the Teatro Mazzi. The composer Robles shaped the song into a zarzuela, a spoken and sung play: The condor, the symbol of freedom, continues to circulate. The intercession invokes the condor, who is to take a victim with him to the kingdom of the Incas. This idea of freedom is also the basis of the English-language version of Simon and Garfunkel.