El cóndor pasa (zarzuela)

El cóndor pasa is a Peruvian zarzuela (musical play) whose music was composed by Peruvian songwriter Daniel Alomía Robles in 1913 with a script written by Julio de La Paz (pseudonym of the Limenian dramatist Julio Baudouin). This zarzuela is written in prose and consists of one musical play and two acts. The eponymous piece, El cóndor pasa, performed during the zarzuela's parade scene, has no lyrics. The zarzuela's famous eponymous melody is considered the second national anthem of Peru. It is based on the traditional Andean music of Peru, which was declared an element of National Cultural Heritage in 2004. There are probably more than 400 versions of the piece by artists from around the world, at least 300 of which have lyrics. The piano arrangement of this play's most famous melody was legally registered on May 3, 1933, by the Edward B. Marks Music Corporation with the United States' Library of Congress under the number 9643.

The pieces were originally written for orchestra, not for Andean instruments. The most famous parts, such as the prelude, parade, and cachua, have been adapted from the piano arrangement that Daniel Alomía Robles sold to The Edward B. Marks Music Corp., in New York, by the Colectivo Cultural Centenario El Cóndor Pasa in 1933. All of the pieces are exempt from copyright license fees due to the time elapsed since they were registered.

In 1965, American artist Paul Simon listened to the version of the parade tune performed by Los Incas in the Théâtre de l'Est Parisien (Paris). Simon asked the band permission to include a cover version of the song on an album. The band advised him that the piece belonged to Andean folklore, while the arrangement was Jorge Milchberg's (director of Los Incas). Milchberg is represented as the arrangement's co author because he added two notes which entitled him to collect royalties. In 1970, Simon & Garfunkel covered the Los Incas' version under the name "El Cóndor Pasa" ("If I Could"), adding English lyrics written by Simon, and included it in the album Bridge Over Troubled Water. Daniel Alomía Robles was not listed in the credits as the piece's original composer, because it was considered an Andean folk melody. Simon was listed as the author of the lyrics; nobody was given credit for the melody. This cover achieved worldwide fame, and has itself been covered multiple times, its lyrics translated into multiple languages. Even Armando Robles Godoy, the composer's son and Peruvian filmmaker, wrote new lyrics for the song using Paul Simon's version as a reference.

In July 2013, the Colectivo Cultural Centenario El Cóndor Pasa (cultural association) re edited the original script of the zarzuela, which had been lost for some time, as a CD containing the dialogue and seven musical pieces. The music from the original score was reconstructed by musicologist Luis Salazar Mejía, with the collaboration of musicians Daniel Dorival and Claude Ferrier, and it was performed on November 14, 15 and 16, 2013, at the Teatro UNI in Lima to commemorate the masterpiece's first centenary. All of the work done to recover and re release the zarzuela (including the CD) was possible thanks to the efforts of musicologist Luis Salazar Mejía and cultural promoter Mario Cerrón Fetta (members of the above mentioned cultural association), and was carried out without any public financial support.