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One of my all-time favourite pieces of music is the stunning El Cóndor Pasa (“The Condor Passes”). Most of us will probably know it from Simon & Garfunkel’s very gorgeous 1970 rendition, which featured on their Bridge Over Troubled Water LP, but the origins of this go way back to 1913!
El Cóndor Pasa was written by the Peruvian composer Daniel Alomía Robles and was originally composed as an orchestral musical piece from the zarzuela (Spanish lyric-dramatic genre that alternates between spoken and sung scenes). Since then, it has been estimated that, around the world, more than 4,000 versions of the melody have been produced, along with 300 sets of lyrics!!! In 2004, Peru declared this song to be a part of their national cultural heritage and it is now considered the second national anthem of Peru!
The version I am featuring today comes from Nico Gomez’s stunning 1971 album, Ritual. This record is of his most sought-after recordings, performed by his band Nico Gomez And His Afro Percussion Inc. It is considered one of the best Afro-Latin albums of the 1970’s…and there’s no doubt about it, this is a superb record!…which you can listen to in its entirety, here!!…I’ve also written a more detailed post about the artist, so if you’d like to read more about him, you can find that here!
Listen and enjoy above1
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