Jose Bernardo Alcedo , was born in Lima in 1798 . His parents were the doctor José Isidoro Alcedo and Rosa Reluerto. In 1807 he wears the habit of tertiary brother or donated of the convent of Santo Domingo. He discovers his vocation for music and receives the teachings in that field from the friars Pascual Nieves and Cipriano Aguilar, chapel masters of the convents of Santo Domingo and San Agustín, respectively. He is in charge of instructing children's choirs and at the age of 18 he composed his first mass in D major . On August 7, 1821, a few days after independence was proclaimed, José de San Martín called for a contest to compose the national march or national anthem. José Bernardo Alcedo joins José de la Torre Ugarte (1786-1831), with whom he had already composed the popular song La chicha , satirical and rebellious. On September 17, 1821, among seven finalist compositions, the one authored by Alcedo was chosen as the winner, which for a long time was known as the national song , according to Luis Alberto Sánchez. Alcedo's former teacher, Cipriano Aguilar, also participated in the contest. Informally, the hymn premiered on September 21 at the Principal Theater , before the announcement of the capitulation of La Mar in Callao.
The national anthem of José Bernardo Alcedo is officially released
It officially premiered on September 23 in the voice of Rosa Merino , being the orchestra conducted by Alcedo himself, according to Carlos Raygada.
On August 15, 1822, Alcedo joined the patriotic forces in the class of second lieutenant with the position of senior musician in the battalion number 4 of Chile, the country to which he traveled in 1823, later requesting his discharge. He then dedicated himself to giving private music classes and later joined the choir of the Santiago Cathedral, in which he became choirmaster (1847). It is known that he returned to Peru on two occasions (1829 and 1841), even offering his services as a music teacher through notices published in the Lima press. In 1857 he married the lady from Santiago Juana Rojas Cea and in 1864, called by the Peruvian government, he definitively returned to Peru. He is assigned an honorary pension and is appointed director of the army bands. Already established in Lima, he has occasion to verify that the national anthem composed by him had undergone several modifications, both in music and in lyrics, accepting, however, some arrangements made by the Italian master Claudio Rebagliati (1843-1909). The checkered history of the versions of the patriotic anthem would not end until many years later, having even called an official contest in 1901, to replace the lyrics of José de la Torre Ugarte, in which the poet José Santos Chocano was the winner. However, by law No. 1801 of February 26, 1913, such a result was annulled and the original version of the anthem composed by Alcedo and De la Torre Ugarte, incorporating Rebagliati's arrangements, was declared intangible.
Alcedo is elected as first vice president of the Philharmonic Society in 1867 and appointed a year later honorary president for life of said institution. He published in 1869 his Elementary Philosophy of Music and two years later, in the church of La Merced, he executed his play Miserere with remarkable success. He died in Lima on December 18, 1878 and his remains rest in the Panteón de los Proceres. Among the many works he composed are not only marches and military hymns (Hymn of the warrior, El Dos de Mayo, La Araucana) but also religious themes (Pasión para el Domingo de Ramos, Trisagio solemne a la Santísima Trinidad) and popular songs (La Cora , The Pola).
The date of birth of Alcedo, as well as many details of his life, are the subject of permanent controversy and divergent versions . In 1945, the researcher Carlos Raygada found Alcedo's death certificate, from whose text it can be deduced that he would have been born in 1788. The source of the data recorded in said certificate has not been confirmed, however.