Jorge Milchberg, a native of Buenos Aires, living in France since the 1950s, died in Paris on August 20, the Argentine embassy announced on Friday August 26. The Argentinian musician and composer was famous for adapting and recording in the 1960s El Cóndor passed, become probably the best-known Andean melody in the world.
Jorge Milchberg, born in Buenos Aires on September 5, 1928 to Polish parents, established in France since 1955, was a classically trained pianist, but also a world-renowned charango player – an Andean plucked string guitar. He was a member and artistic director for nearly 60 years of Los Incas, an emblematic group of Andean music founded in the 1950s in Paris, and which has multiplied international tours, the embassy said in a press release.
Los Incas, also known as Urubamba, recorded in 1963 El Cóndor pass (the condor passes), then again with arrangements by Milchberg and lyrics by Paul Simon, a version sung by the famous New York folk duo Simon and Garfunkel, under the title If I could, in their album Bridge over troubled water (1970). It was in Paris that the agreement for the adaptation of the song was signed.
Initially, the theme ofEl Cóndor pass was taken from a zarzuela, a musical theater piece of the same name, created in 1913 by the Peruvian composer Daniel Alomía Robles, but in a version for orchestra. The version for reduced ensemble by Milchberg, and the title of Simon and Garfunkel which has become a folk standard, have contributed to the spectacular fame of El Cóndor passed, which has known countless versions, and led to a renewed interest in Latin American music.
Milchberg, underlines the site of Los Incas, prefigured the “approach to arranging and adapting traditional music, now popularized in World music”, but unpublished in the 60s and 70s. Jorge Milchberg will be buried in his town of Thénisy, in Seine-et-Marne, specifies the embassy.