Abel Fleury was born in Dolores province of Buenos Aires, Argentina April 5, 1903. He came from a working-class family. His mother ironed clothes and his father was a baker. At the age of 11 his musical vocation took sprout: when passing the town’s barber shop he heard the sound of a guitar, an event that he remembered for the rest of his life. His mother bought him his first guitar, and gave him his first lessons, instilling in him the tones of the milonga for which he is known. (Note: The milonga is often called tango’s mother.)Later Abel Fleury consolidated his knowledge with that of popular musicians of Dolores and other intuitive musicians who happened his way. With time the famous Argentinian musician Honorio Sicardi gave him harmony lessons. At the age of 20 he left his town and resided alternatively in Mar del Plata, Tres Arroyos, Tandil, La Plata and Buenos Aires, giving concerts and lessons to numerous pupils.
In 1933 Fleury established himself in Buenos Aires, now known in most of the country thanks to Fernando Ochoa who had him participate in his radio broadcasts. Then he began multiple and varied activities for a short time. With his mysterious guitar he gave concerts throughout Argentina, in the most out-of-the way places. Along with making music from the poems that Ochoa recited, Fleury created and directed the famous guitar orchestras with 12 to 15 guitarists.
In a short time he formed the Argentine Popular Quartet with Sebastián Piana (piano), Pedro Maffia (bandoneón) and Angel Corletto (contrabass). Their international tours began in 1948, first in Chile, then Uruguay and Brazil, a country that he had crossed in all directions, penetrating even into the jungle of Matto Grosso. Finally Europe: Spain, France, Belgium and Portugal.
Abel Fleury was one of the first diffusers of Latin American music in Europe, interpreting Argentinian composers like Adolfo Luna, Pedro Herrera, Gómez Crespo, Tremsal, Juan de Dios Filiberto, Joaquín López Flores; the Paraguayans Agustín Barrios, Félix Pérez Cardozo, Pablo Escobar; the Uruguayans Eduardo Favini, Rubén Menéndez, Isaias Savio, Martínez Oyanguren, Héctor G. Costa; the Brazilians Alberto Scupinari, Villa Lobos, Dilermando Reis, Lorenzo Fernández, the Bolivian Eduardo Caba, and Antonio Lauro of Venezuela. In his repertoire he also included classic composers: Bach, Mozart, Händel, Sor, Tárrega, Schubert.
Fleury was constantly on the road with his instruments. He gave concerts totally self-sponsored with no type of official aid. He crossed part of Europe in 1952-53, leaving a great memory in all the places that he visited, giving a great example of humility and talent. In Spain the great musicologist and critic of Spanish art Eduardo Lopez Chavarri, wrote: “His concert was a magnificent lesson in style. Wonderful suggestions were born of his chords that in his hands brings to the mysterious instrument tones that hardly the great Tárrega has given to us to hear.” (Las Provincias, 12/2/53).
This musician from Buenos Aires was not a folklorist, but an artist of classical formation like Barrios. But with his talent he knew how to faithfully translate the spirit of the Pampas and to achieve universal fame through his melodies. For that reason in the 1930s, when the great Spanish poet Federico García Lorca visited Buenos Aires, at a meeting in which Ochoa was also present, Fleury performed some of his repertoire. When he finished, the Spanish poet hugged him and said to him: “Chico, you do not belong to America but to the whole World!”. This universal transcendence was reflected in unusual facts: “Pampan Style” one of Fleury’s most important works, has been an obligatory composition in the Musical School of Tomsk, Siberia, Russia. The composer was never in Russia.
On Agust 9, 1958, this great and sensitive man passed from this life. It has been 40 years since his death. In a shadowy form the art of Abel Fleury advances into new horizons. His music continues resonating beyond forgetting and indifference, pulstating eternities.
Article by Héctor García Martínez published in the magazine De mis pagos in 1995, translated by Theo Radic.
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