The Condor Passes... Musical Appropriations and Reappropriations in Globalization

Abstract

This article describes the process by which "El cóndor pasa" happened to become the most representative piece of Andean music. Quechua musicians played a similar version and circulated it in an oral circuit until the end of the 19th century. It was then compiled and modified by the folklorist Daniel Alomí Robles, who included it in the musical accompaniment of the operetta El cóndor pasa... (1913 ). In 1970, Paul Simon used the song and did a cover entitled "If could". The Trébol musical group from Cuzco put lyrics in Quechua in 1973, and, finally , the musician Delfín Garay Sosa in 2004, in an oblique way, to replicate the attitude of Paul Simon, did a cover of "Duncan" authored by Simon This article examines this process of appropriations and re-appropriations as actions with "friction" (Tsing) when different worlds interact in the context of globalization.